Science topics: PhilosophyEpistemology
Science topic
Epistemology - Science topic
Epistemology is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature and scope (limitations) of knowledge.
Questions related to Epistemology
Hello everyone, I hope you're having a great day. I'm currently a bit confused about whether I should use IPA or thematic analysis. I have already decided on thematic analysis, but I have stated that my research is based on a phenomological epistemology. Since thematic analysis is quite flexible, I would appreciate any suggestions on how I can align it with a phenomenological approach.
For background im conducting an interview based research with the aim to explore how individuals' interactions with social media shape experiences around body image among South Asians
I have attend a few PhD VIVA VOCE and I hear Panelists asking about the researcher's positionality. Many times, the candidates positionality is contrasted with the philosophy behind his/her study in terms of epistemology and ontology.
Epistemology is often treated as the central field of philosophical discussions. But, as she discusses the nature of knowledge and beliefs, she goes beyond the field of philosophy and influences all areas of modern thought, its studies and people's daily lives. All academic disciplines ask questions about method, validation, and truth: that is, epistemological questions. Science has accumulated several epistemological views over its more than four hundred years of existence. In this way, we do not speak of a single epistemological framework, but we recognize its evolution over time and in relation to the problems they seek to know.
I googled this question (on December 20, 2024) and got an AI answer. “ the human brain has a memory capacity of 2.5 petabytes”.
What is the authority for such an enormous memory? What are the cites? What is the proof?
On a preliminary, tentative approach I have taken, I suspect that the human brain's knowledge capacity might be under 1 TB.
Can you refer to authorities about this question?
After reading articles on training doctoral students in educational research, I ask this question. I find the arguments intriguing, but I still have this big question about whether we should prioritize epistemology/ontology over methodology.
DUMBING-DOWN THE WORLD
Who is responsible for the dumbing-down of the world's population? Language is the medium of consensus and of discord. As cultures seek a meaningful world-view, volubility increases with the need for more words. Concepts become redundant and discarded; words are invented and reification changes reality. Modern science, religion – and contemporary education – are based on the presumption of Pluralism (not Realism or Materialism, as is commonly held). The primacy of a metaphysical perspective has all-but been abandoned. The vast body of academic scholarship over the last century was predicated on the catastrophic Oxford Model and is mostly meaningless and redundant. An incomprehensible waste of resources and lives supporting the crumbling edifice of Ivory Tower-based education. That culture, based on erroneous assumptions, must take responsibility for the World's stultified condition. The world-view of the vast majority is based on harm, through ignorance, lies and deception.
PLEASE NOTE: I AM NOT THE AUTHOR OR A CO-AUTHOR OF THIS WORK
However, I commend to you this brilliant paper by Peter Eastman, written in 2014.
What's wrong with Philosophy? Nothing, but it is the post-moderne philosophers that have lost touch with the legacy of ancient wisdom, in which lies the key to the locked Self.
The abandonment of the principles of epistemology, most notably Critical Thinking in modern scholarship and education, has rendered philosophers impotent to affect real metaphysical inquiry and a meaningful understanding of one's existence; one's ontological dilemma.
Of course, no-one wants to discuss the bull in the China shop: the stampede to concept and fallacy reification in 21st-century academia. Or, do we?
The Humanities are under attack from without, probably due to the expensive drivel and meaningless, self-serving output that Ivory Towers churn. Perhaps the answer is in the deceptive methodology (a posteriori logic), the vacuous speculations, overt manipulation and dissent ping-pong which have provided fruitful pickings for scholarly enterprise; Ivory Towers must be maintained and defended, at any cost, it seems.
Perhaps pay-rolled philosophy professionals portray pointlessness purposely?
You are invited to join the discussion group as one looks forward to your comments and contributions.
In Xenia.
JW
I am looking at kant's whole transcedental aesthetic like a film roll and film , where outer sense objects are in a film roll that like in a roll they have all the scenes of a movie simultaneously but we cant see the film at once so it must be intuited in time spontaneously .
Hashim Haroon Yes, of course you can see a manifold of appearances. For example by empathy and trying to understand others. It does not mean that by understanding what they appearently see you will become that person.
Kant was not always right. His understanding was that those appearances occure in a certain order because time is within us.
It's crucial to remember that Kant's philosophy was very much a product of his time and cultural context. During the 18th century, Enlightenment thinkers like Kant were grappling with the legacy of the Scientific Revolution and the new ideas about the universe that it had introduced. One of the key ideas that emerged during this time was the concept of causation, which posited that every event has a cause and effect that can be understood through scientific investigation. This idea of linear causality and the passage of time was a central part of the scientific worldview, and it's reflected in Kant's philosophy as well.
By trying to see the world from other people's perspectives, we can begin to appreciate the diversity of experiences and viewpoints that exist, and recognize that our own understanding is just one of many. Throughout history, there have been many individuals who have challenged the prevailing beliefs and perspectives of their time, and offered new insights and ideas that were ahead of their time.
Jesus was certainly a revolutionary figure in his time, challenging the established religious and political authorities and offering a radical message of love, forgiveness, and social justice. Jesus showed people how to see beyond the narrow confines of their own limited perspectives and embrace a more holistic and interconnected view of the world. By teaching the principles of love, forgiveness, and empathy, Jesus encouraged people to recognize the inherent dignity and worth of all human beings, and to work towards seeing the manifold. With his death he created a very powerful symbol of the ultimate singularity.
Just as there are different types of celestial bodies in the universe, there are also different types of people with different personalities and ways of interacting with the world.
Some people may be like "black holes," drawing everything into themselves and leaving little room for others to shine. Others may be like "white holes," radiating energy and positivity that lifts up those around them. And of course, most people are somewhere in between, with a complex mix of traits and behaviors that make them unique and fascinating individuals.
One very interesting individual was for example Caspar David Friedrich. He was way more refined and developed than Kant.
The 2 theories have epistemologically ("how to get knowledge") Distinct starting points, i underly here epistemological, not methodological i.e on level of phosophy of knowledge
GR considers or tests on hypothesis that the properties of matter and radiation(mostly radiation i.e light) are given i.e constant speed or state equations and describes in details the time space that is the results of these, then motion emerges i.e geodesic etc
QM takes hypothesis that spacetime is given i.e symmetry of Hamiltonian and studies properties of matter or particles (and their motion). Properties of particles are
emergent i.e spin
According to the incompatibility thesis*, the two approaches yield knowledge from different hypotheses. There is no. Middle ground as this would destroy tge knowledge generating process
*I will elaborate soon on a essay
To exactly quantify the afterlife, first we must confirm, then chart, the probable multiverse through engineering. Then we must engineer a machine to find where one’s individuality goes throughout the multiverse, after death in this universe.
I read with interest the answers provided in Q&A section. It has been observed that these answers run in higher number which is usually sufficient to be utilized as qualitative research participants. Could these answers be analyzed through discourse analysis, with NVivo or ATLAS.ti to highlight a phenomenon from epistemological and ontological perspective? I would be grateful for the kindness of the research community at ResearchGate towards their response.
If physics adjusted for the law of identity, could we exactly quantify the afterlife? How?
Maybe so:
1)On Physics:
Presentation Critical Rationalist Physics
2)Deductive reasoning:
Quantum mechanics is not just a new theory (of physics, of microworld etc) but a new epistemological shade of the paradigm: it takes causality a step further from the standard Newtonian traditional to a 1 to 1 correspondence where in probabilistic terms the state is related not to a standard Abstract state conception, i.e state of Rest, state of liquid but to the time projected outcome to a point where the two might be indistiguishable or construct each others identity.
The success of this epistemological facelift has not been reolicated in other domain of physics or of science, which would probably happen in the same way that some positivist approaches have been empkoyed in psychology and else.
The reason for this is that this framework has been falsely attacged to the QM domain and also because it has not been discerned as such one or articulated clearly and understand able enough.
RESPECTFULLY, pan-dualism is more plausible than pan-deism. All entities either are unique, or too different for perfect prediction. Plus, humans may be bound by some rules(genetics, environment, circumstances, etc.) but, without the fundamental choice to focus on life, human reason would be impossible. Plus, humans can lose all their cells yet survive and retain their individual identities. So, at least humans have some immaterial tracker(maybe souls). Pan-deism depends on the unlikely premise that a creator destroyed itself(thus, all existence are dubiously the creator’s debris). We don’t know who created us or how. Thus, pan-dualism has the most evidence, while making the least assumptions.
Science approximately derives from philosophy thus, at some point, software is at least subconsciously based on a particular epistemology more than other epistemological schools. How can we base software on critical rationalism?
Observing the launch of Special Issue(s) on various transdisciplinary research themes/topics, many potential authors/guest editors asked about names and websites of (i) international, (ii) indexed, (iii) peer-reviewed, (iv) impact factored, (v) often cited, and (vi) STRICTLY NON-PREDATORY journals which release research, survey, application, and viewpoint articles on various aspects of cyber-physical-human-social systems for a public debate. The aspects can be philosophy, theory, epistemology, methodology, technology, disciplinary design, systems engineering, intelligence, human factors, deployment, application, impacts, future, etc.
Could you please recommend such journals to extend the list under construction? Thank you very much.
Despite its success, physics is not the ultimate tool to predict and solve all scientific ambitions. One reason might be inherent in its epistemological approach which gave it its success. Some double edged traits of it are
**absence of componential relations i.e does not identify relation of part (with function) to whole
** simplistic direct one on one consequences i.e in cause effect chains there is only one consequence and the complexity of one Act causing in direct reactions that might even lead to different course are omitted. Biology is not like this
**absence of agent relations i.e even force does not identify one objects as agent due to mutual interactive nature of force concept given by Newton
How strong of a mutation changes an individual’s DNA signature beyond identification? How specifically? Every human constantly mutates yet retains their genetic identity thus, the mutation must be stronger than usual.
Preprint EIP then RPD
Experimentally, observationally, and observational-theoretically, some of the generalizations of any physical ontology of cosmology may, strictly speaking, be non-verifiable and non-falsifiable.
But the empirical method of the sciences is continuous with the theoretical. Both, together, form part of "reason". Note also this: Reason is not equivalent to logic. There are many sorts of logic. Reason is the general set, and the various logics are sub-sets or members.
From this viewpoint, would you admit that there seems to be the possibility of obtaining SOME REASON from the suggestion that a PHYSICAL ONTOLOGY OF THE REASON WITHIN THE COSMOS be constructed? I CALL THIS REASON UNIVERSAL CAUSALITY.
I have developed an MMM (maximal-medial-minimal) method, where the approachable values are zero, finite, and infinite -- all others being strictly of the realm of the positive sciences. Zero, finitude, and infinity may be available in the positive sciences. But in the case of zero and infinity, the attitude is that of limiting values.
Finitude is a general term. In the positive sciences there must be specific values, not generally finite values!
Of course, we do not know of infinite values in the strictest sense of the term. But on the same count we do not also know zero value except as the absence of WHAT WE CONSIDER at a given instance.
I feel that a sort of "axiomatization" is perhaps possible -- at least as a physical ontology of the cosmos, PROVIDED UNIVERSAL CAUSALITY IS DERIVABLE DIRECTLY FROM THE CONCEPT OF EXISTENCE (TO BE).
SEE:
Bibliography
(1) Gravitational Coalescence Paradox and Cosmogenetic Causality in Quantum Astrophysical Cosmology, 647 pp., Berlin, 2018.
(2) Physics without Metaphysics? Categories of Second Generation Scientific Ontology, 386 pp., Frankfurt, 2015.
(3) Causal Ubiquity in Quantum Physics: A Superluminal and Local-Causal Physical Ontology, 361 pp., Frankfurt, 2014.
(4) Essential Cosmology and Philosophy for All: Gravitational Coalescence Cosmology, 92 pp., KDP Amazon, 2022, 2nd Edition.
(5) Essenzielle Kosmologie und Philosophie für alle: Gravitational-Koaleszenz-Kosmologie, 104 pp., KDP Amazon, 2022, 1st Edition.
DOES THE WORLD HAVE A CLEARLY HOLISTIC FUTURE IN SCIENCE, SOCIETY, POLITICS AND PHILOSOPHY?
The world is used to thinking in terms of emotions and thoughts. But the stark difference between acts of emotion and acts of thought at the theoretical and practical levels can be bridged. The reason suggested is the following.
EVEN IF THERE IS NO ABSOLUTE CONTINUITY AND CONNECTION BETWEEN EACH ACT OF THOUGHT AND EACH ACT OF EMOTION, THERE EXISTS PARTIAL CONTINUITY BETWEEN ANY FINITE NUMBER OF SUCH PROCESSES, AND HENCE, ALL OF THEM ARE SOMEHOW CONNECTED. THIS CONNECTION IS CAUSAL, AND NOT MERELY MATHEMATICAL OR QUANTUM-PHYSICAL.
As a result, even esthetic acts can be connected to the acts of thinking in the sciences, philosophy, literature, music, etc., both theoretically and practically. Neuroscience too can profit out of this paradigm change.
Further, when emotions, imaginations, reasonings, etc. are brought under the ambit of acts of logical reasoning, what would change in the theoretical acts of logical conclusions in the sciences, philosophy, literature, and other disciplines?
Naturally, also the character of the persons who are supposed to express thoughts, emotions, etc. in various ways for the good of humankind will take precedence. This is what value epistemology insists on.
As a result, the personalities behind and within the sciences, philosophy, literature, music, other performing arts, and also in the fields of teaching and other services, will be influenced and transformed substantially.
DOES THE WORLD HAVE SUCH A FUTURE? IF IT HAS, IT IS BETTER TO PRECIPITATE SUCH A FUTURE.
Why specifically does Wolfram Matematica theorize reality is discrete in nature?
Maybe because reality is too unpredictable to be continuous. Plus, discrete data suggests either every entity is unique or simply too different for perfect predictions.
Life is predictable enough to form survival heuristics yet, too unpredictable for specific absolutes(GENERAL ONES EXIST). Source(my most recent and most cumulative work):
Why does information theory explain aging, evolution vs creationism, critical rationalism, computer programming and much more?
Perhaps information has a very open definition thus, is very robust.
Yes because critical rationalism recognizes substance, parsimony and identity(adjusts premises upon contradiction), while skeptical empiricism believes all results from impressions. Skeptical empiricism also believes the self is an illusion.
maybe in the afterlife I've failed at... Uniqueness may be the arche...
Everyone is special:
Relativity is used when speed is high enough. Quantum mechanics is used at subatomic scales. Thus, relativity and quantum mechanics are complimentary, depend on different variables, and should follow the law of identity: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/381469939_Critical_Rationalist_Physics
Warren C. Gibson. “Modern Physics versus Objectivism.” The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies, vol. 13, no. 2, 2013, pp. 140–59. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.5325/jaynrandstud.13.2.0140. Accessed 16 June 2024. "Leonard Peikoff and David Harriman have denounced modern physics as incompatible with Objectivist metaphysics and epistemology. Physics, they say, must return to a Newtonian viewpoint; much of relativity theory must go, along with essentially all of quantum mechanics, string theory, and modern cosmology. In their insistence on justifications in terms of “physical nature,” they cling to a macroscopic worldview that doesn't work in the high-velocity arena of relativity or the subatomic level of quantum mechanics. It is suggested that the concept of identity be widened to accommodate the probabilistic nature of quantum phenomena."
Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. "Karl Popper". Encyclopedia Britannica, 14 May. 2024, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Karl-Popper. Accessed 23 June 2024.
Meinwald, Constance C.. "Plato". Encyclopedia Britannica, 5 May. 2024, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Plato. Accessed 23 June 2024.
Kenny, Anthony J.P. and Amadio, Anselm H.. "Aristotle". Encyclopedia Britannica, 25 May. 2024, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Aristotle. Accessed 23 June 2024.
Critical rationalism respects the law of identity. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/381469939_Critical_Rationalist_Physics
Arguments
1. Special relativistic principles i.e relativity principle and constancy of speed of light sound more like epistemilogical-philisophical claims rhat cannot be falsified independently and autonomously from rhe theory framework
2. Special relativity expands the physical world's effective nature to satisfy properties of light (postulate 1) which is semantically problematic even thought it unifes and explains exceptionally well. Thus, the fact that ut has this semantic assymetry hints to an philosophical epistemological weight or inclination not suitable for the term mechanics.
3. Lorentz phenomena like length contraction existed before SE, thus because rhey did jit include any interpretation vs formalism distinction, they are non QM style mechanics alike SR
Taha Sochi first claimed this in 2011
I don't know.
1)
Warren C. Gibson. “Modern Physics versus Objectivism.” The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies, vol. 13, no. 2, 2013, pp. 140–59. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.5325/jaynrandstud.13.2.0140. Accessed 14 June 2024.
2)
The simulation theory is NOT parsimonious because at least partial free will is self-evident. Reason would not exist without the fundamental choice to focus on life. Even animals probably make decisions thus, have souls.
Quantum mechanics focuses more on probability and specific units which seems more empirical. Whereas relativity is more theoretical and thus rationalist.
One of the open (and unanswered thus far) questions in science is this: Why does the world look the way it does.
This fundamental epistemological question appears in numerous scientific contexts, some that have always intrigued me being the following: why all biological organisms have the shape they do? For example, why are there lions, tigers and bears along with humans and all other animals and plants one encounters on Earth, and have the form they do and carry out the functions they do at present and over the course of their evolution?
Why does water (and in fact any simple or complex chemical compound) have the chemical composition that it has, according to a chemist or physicist?
Why are there bosons, or any other elementary particles, above or below the scale an observer has been able to reach and observe thus far?
And more broadly: Why does the Universe (and all its elements), look to an observer like it does (and they do), and it has (and they have) evolved to exist in the manner, form and functions that it does (and they do), i.e., as it does (and they do) appear to an observer at our scale of existence and from our point of view?
These are basically existential/epistemological questions, since they involve "why's". Science usually is structured so that it poses questions starting with "how's". Yet, that doesn't necessarily imply that an epistemologist should not try to answer such "why's", without resorting to religion or untamed, undisciplined philosophy.
Are there any suggestions for quantitative and qualitative measures of the components of epistemic thinking (according to the AIR - Apt epistemic performance model)?
Differentiating and integrating
My best strategy is to make my body of work on metaphysics so big and rigorous that, people will ponder "how would he have done this without a doctorate?"
1)
Data Metaphysics BA
2)
Data Metaphysics MA
3)
4)
Data Metaphysics PHD
5)
1)No one can predict the future completely accurately.
2)So, all beings probably have a unique enough form.
3)Plus, the most fundamental essence of reality is unknown.
4)Thus, upon death, each being probably doesn't return.
Since Hawkings theorem of black hole radiation, a lot of work has been done to link uncertainty principle as a consequence of thermodynamic principles, gravitational force as a requurement for entropy increase in downwards state transitions i.e lose of information etc
But nobody inquired to clarify what this aim is about more fundamentally
Does a researcher need to be well-informed about epistemology in order to be a good researcher? And why?
1)Maybe I'm slightly less intuitive. I
consider myself kind of a skeptical empiricist/critical rationalist.
2)I don't believe concepts are eternal because they need to be adjusted to avoid contradictions.
3)Without some transcendence beyond materialism, we would NOT be able to reason.
4)Maybe reason is the ONLY absolute CONCEPT. And reason derives from God.
5)Concepts also aid execution thus, maybe I'm a more skeptical Aristotelian.
Sources:
Linguistic analytic philosophy seems to be the philosophy of the day -- represented more than 60% or 70% of academic philosophers in some or other manner. What Frege, Wittgenstein, etc. have said do contain a lot of truth, but should their claims and critiques be the broadest of truths? An example: Later Wittgenstein's insistence that very use of language is the working definition of language. Can we not say this of many other things?
"Motion" is to be found in everything. And why do these philosophers not "use", for example, the notion of "motion" as the fundamental instrument of analysis of everything?
"Interpretation" is yet another concept that may be used in order to analyze everything, and why not? In short, merely because the use-theory of language is useful, we cannot use this theory to analyze everything! But why this addiction in the minds of analytic thinkers with language?
I have mentioned one inconsistency of linguistic philosophy here. In the course of our discussion many more will emerge. I would myself contribute some more.
Bibliography
(1) Gravitational Coalescence Paradox and Cosmogenetic Causality in Quantum Astrophysical Cosmology, 647 pp., Berlin, 2018.
(2) Physics without Metaphysics? Categories of Second Generation Scientific Ontology, 386 pp., Frankfurt, 2015.
(3) Causal Ubiquity in Quantum Physics: A Superluminal and Local-Causal Physical Ontology, 361 pp., Frankfurt, 2014.
(4) Essential Cosmology and Philosophy for All: Gravitational Coalescence Cosmology, 92 pp., KDP Amazon, 2022, 2nd Edition.
(5) Essenzielle Kosmologie und Philosophie für alle: Gravitational-Koaleszenz-Kosmologie, 104 pp., KDP Amazon, 2022, 1st Edition.
EPISTEMOLOGY OF EVER PUSHING THE DEFINITIONS
OF SYSTEMIC CATEGORIES AND AXIOMS
Raphael Neelamkavil, Ph.D., Dr. phil.
We discuss here the continuous and never-ending dimensionality of truth in philosophy, science, philosophical cosmology etc. (in my context, also in Gravitational Coalescence Cosmology – CCG). The present work on a new philosophical cosmology is based on general-ontologically validated epistemological truth-probabilism, which spells out the human tendency to articulate general- and physical-ontological foundations (axiomatic Categorial Laws of metaphysics) that will never be fixed forever, will be ever-better defined, and are therefore clearly and continuously dimensional concepts in the inexhaustible continuation of the very dimension of each of the notions and principles under consideration.
Theoretical foundations that can follow such continuous dimensionality, together, in their implications, indicate not our possession of any truth in its alleged correspondence to the totality of all processes (Reality-in-total) ontologically committed to. They clearly indicate that progress is being made in adequately capturing, or corresponding to, the ideal continuous dimension of what are being sought in human intellectual, technological, and cultural accomplishments – thanks to the logical, epistemological, and ontological implications of Kurt Gödel’s mathematical and logical achievements. [For the achievements of Gödel, see Torkel Franzén 2004: 1-11; see also Richard Tieszen 2011. For a detailed cosmological, epistemological, and ontological treatment of it, see my book, Physics without Metaphysics? Categories of Second Generation Scientific Ontology, 2015, and Gravitational Coalescence Paradox and Cosmogenetic Causality in Quantum Astrophysical Cosmology, 2018.][1]
Progress is being made not merely in the sciences, the arts, human institutions, etc. Progress is concretely taking place in philosophy too. The cumulative effect of progress in philosophy is not so easily visible as in the case of many other disciplines, because philosophy is to some extent philosopher-based and system-based.
The problem of Gödel’s incompleteness theorem stems from the incompleteness of systems that build themselves up with consistency from primitive notions and axioms: “So every formal system of arithmetic cannot derive the assertion of its own consistency, provided that it is consistent.” [Joseph Vidal-Rosset 2006: 56] But the reason for the innate inconsistency is the natural rigidity in the definitions of the primitive notions (Categories) and axioms. Such rigidity stems from the finitely symbolic nature of representations derived from the denotative function of denotatively defined universals / concepts.
Here the system does not sufficiently recognize connotative universals in consciousness, which are the ideal reflections of the ontological universalities / commonalities in the processes being studied. In that case, the issue stems from still deeper realms: the ever-abiding dubitability of any sort of denotative definitions of primitive notions and axioms from which systems start off. This is true of all sciences. That is, we need great flexibility in the definitions of primitive notions and axioms. This flexibility is what I have called “pushing categories and axioms”. In which case, why not consider all sciences philosophies as part of one generalized science facilitating flexibility?
I do not suggest that the general patterns in human thought or philosophy hold within themselves realizations merely of the implications of Gödel’s theorems [Torkel Franzén 2005: 77ff, 137ff] without the possibility of betterment of theories and systems. Truth can be conceived and defined in any rigorous axiomatic system, where foundational incompleteness will be systemically built in clearly from the possibility, after Gödel, of improvement of completeness if the system can follow the method of indefinitely pushing back the ontological and logical limits of definitions of both (1) axioms and sub-axioms as such into more fundamental ones or more adequate definitions of the same axioms, and (2) primitive notions’ meanings by reason of their definitions. I shall call this solution the method of “pushing Categories and axioms” into more fundamental realms in their definitions. This is the epistemological-methodological foundation of systemic science, namely, the science of all sciences.
This manner of procedure is the most fundamental epistemological ingredient of progress in systems, and this is what happens in history when systems are overhauled or overwhelmed in parts or as wholes. Without such pushing the definitional limits of the basic Categories (primitive notions, metaphysical Laws) and the axioms already created in any system, there is no foundation-building in systems of any kind, especially after we have proofs for this necessity in the logical, epistemological, and ontological implications of the work of Gödel.
This fact will (1) positively relativize the concept of philosophical, mathematical, and scientific truth and (2) negatively highlight human intellectual, technological, cultural, political, and religious institutions’ tendency to fossilize truths. Not relativistic truth-probabilism but clear, adequate, and applicable systemism with ever higher truth-probabilities is to be the foundation of all human thought including mathematics and logic. This is the justification for the creation of the systemic, axiomatic foundations of the sciences of all sciences. This would also satisfy postmodern philosophies with their Socratic effect upon philosophies and sciences and permit philosophy to find surer but ever more flexible paths.
[1] I define: Logic is the science of the best intersubjectively rational consequence of ever higher truth-probability in statements. Epistemology is the science of justifications for the fact and manner of achieving rationally explicable consequence, in a spirally broadening and deepening manner, serving to achieve ever better approximations of the epistemological ideal of Reality-in-general. (Einaic) Ontology is the rationally consequent science of the totality of existents, its parts, and their sine qua nons in terms of the To Be (Einai) of Reality-in-total and/or the to be (einai) of its parts (reality-in-particular), serving to achieve ever better approximations of the epistemological ideal of Reality-in-total.
Bibliography
(1) Gravitational Coalescence Paradox and Cosmogenetic Causality in Quantum Astrophysical Cosmology, 647 pp., Berlin, 2018.
(2) Physics without Metaphysics? Categories of Second Generation Scientific Ontology, 386 pp., Frankfurt, 2015.
(3) Causal Ubiquity in Quantum Physics: A Superluminal and Local-Causal Physical Ontology, 361 pp., Frankfurt, 2014.
(4) Essential Cosmology and Philosophy for All: Gravitational Coalescence Cosmology, 92 pp., KDP Amazon, 2022, 2nd Edition.
(5) Essenzielle Kosmologie und Philosophie für alle: Gravitational-Koaleszenz-Kosmologie, 104 pp., KDP Amazon, 2022, 1st Edition.
If induction and deduction are mutually connected, what is the framework upon which they may be connected? Will such a framework of connecting induction and deduction be a mere perspective or something fundamental?
Courses in logic, philosophy of science, etc. begin always with a detailed study of induction and deduction. Most courses tell us that these are typically different kinds of reasoning. But are they?
I would happily obtain your arguments for or against the so-called mutual exclusiveness of induction and deduction.
I believe that relativising induction and deduction and connecting them with one another under some very general framework of thought will be a grand starting point to revolutionize the foundations of the whole of philosophy and science, and of logic and linguistic analytic philosophy in particular.
How shall the regions and limits of application of the Laws of Identity, Non-contradiction, and Excluded Middle be fixed?
Scientific, philosophical, social, and aesthetic advancements have continuously been made in epochal revolutions and minor changes within epochs. What has / have been the logical background spine behind these changes in terms of logical threshold revolutions during all these millennia?
I do not think that scientific, philosophical, and aesthetic revolutions have not used the foundations of ordinary logic. In this case, the old foundations of logic, especially the Laws of Identity, Non-contradiction, and Excluded Middle, have more or less been used all through these revolutions and changes – both theoretically and practically. The revolutionary achievements in all the human institutions have used them, let alone ordinary conversations and daily thoughts and feelings in human life.
But it is also a fact that time and again the new scientific, philosophical, and aesthetic revolutions have attempted to seek and create new forms of logic. These have been created and developed. This is why we have many forms of logic today.
But have they ever been able to overcome the Laws of Identity, Non-contradiction, and Excluded Middle? Even when the specific logic is considered counterfactual, non-causal, non-classically non-ordinary, etc., their specific foundations have been borne out through the use exclusively of the Laws of Identity, Non-contradiction, and Excluded Middle. This is because any statement, even if it yields only a truth probability, must be considered as true or false before approaching the next step to moving to conclusions.
How then shall the regions and limits of application of the Laws of Identity, Non-contradiction, and Excluded Middle be fixed?
Bibliography
(1) Gravitational Coalescence Paradox and Cosmogenetic Causality in Quantum Astrophysical Cosmology, 647 pp., Berlin, 2018.
(2) Physics without Metaphysics? Categories of Second Generation Scientific Ontology, 386 pp., Frankfurt, 2015.
(3) Causal Ubiquity in Quantum Physics: A Superluminal and Local-Causal Physical Ontology, 361 pp., Frankfurt, 2014.
(4) Essential Cosmology and Philosophy for All: Gravitational Coalescence Cosmology, 92 pp., KDP Amazon, 2022, 2nd Edition.
(5) Essenzielle Kosmologie und Philosophie für alle: Gravitational-Koaleszenz-Kosmologie, 104 pp., KDP Amazon, 2022, 1st Edition.
COMPLEXITY IN SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY, AND CONSCIOUSNESS:
DIFFERENCES AND IMPORTANCE
Raphael Neelamkavil, Ph.D., Dr. phil.
1. Introduction
With an introductory apology for repeating a few definitions in various arguments here below and justifying the same as necessary for clarity, I begin to differentiate between the foundations of the concept of complexity in the physical sciences and in philosophy. I reach the conclusion as to what in the concept of complexity is problematic, because the complexity in physical and biological processes may not be differentiable in terms of complexity alone.
Thereafter I build a concept much different from complexity for application in the development of brains, minds, consciousness etc. I find it a fine way of saving causation, freedom, the development of the mental, and perhaps even the essential aspects of the human and religious dimension in minds.
Concepts of complexity considered in the sciences are usually taken in general as a matter of our inability to achieve measuremental differentiation between certain layers of measurementally integrated events within a process or set of processes and the same sort of measurementally integrated activities within another process or set of processes.
But here there is an epistemological defect: We do not get every physical event and every aspect of one physical event to measure. We have just a layer of the object’s total events for us to attempt to measure. This is almost always forgotten by any scientist doing complexity science. One tends to generalize the results for the case of the whole object! Complexity in the sciences is not at all a concept exactly of measurement of complexity in one whole physically existent process within itself or a set of processes within themselves.
First, what is termed as complexity in an entity is only the measure of our inability to achieve measurements of that part of a layer of process which has been measured or attempted to be measured. Secondly, always there is a measuremental comparison in the sciences in order to fix the measure of complexity in the aspects that are measured or attempted to measure. This is evidently a wrong sort of concept.
The essential difference here must be sharpened further. As a result of what is said above, the following seems more appropriate. Instead of being a measure of the complexities of one or a set of processes, complexity in science is a concept of the difference between (1) our achieved abilities and inabilities to achieve the measurement of actual complexity of certain levels of one physical process or a set of processes and (2) other types of levels of the extent of our ability and inability to measurement within another process or set of processes. This is strange with respect to the claims being made of complexity of whichever physical process a science considers to measure the complexity.
If a scientist had a genuine measurement of complexity, one would not have called it complexity. We have no knowledge of a higher or highest complexity to compare a less intense complexity with. In all cases of complexity science, what we have are just comparisons with either more or less intense complexities. This makes the concept of complexity very complex to deal with.
2. Is Complexity Really Irreducible?
On a neutral note, each existent physical process should possess great complexity. How much? We do not know exactly; but we know exactly that it is neither infinite nor zero. This truth is the Wisdom of complexity. Let us call it complexity philosophy. This philosophical concept of complexity within the thing itself (CI) is different from the methodologically measurement-based concept of complexity (CM) in the sciences. In CM, only the measured and measurable parts of complexity are taken into consideration and the rest of the aspects and parts of the existent physical process under consideration are forgotten.
If this were not true, the one who proposes this is bound to prove that all the aspects and parts of the physical process or at least of the little layer of it under measurement are already under any one or more or all measurementally empirical procedures with respect to or in terms of that layer of the process.
To explain the same differently, the grade of complexity in the sciences is the name of the difference (i.e., in terms of ‘more’ or ‘less’) between the grades of difficulty and ease of measuring a specific layer of causal activity within one process and a comparable or non-comparable layer of causal activity in another.
Both must be measured in terms of the phenomena received from them and the data created of them. Naturally, these have been found to be too complex to measure well enough, because we do not directly measure, but instead measure in terms of scales based on other more basic scales, phenomena, and data. But the measure-elements titled infinite-finite-zero are slightly more liberated of the directly empirically bound notions. I anticipate some arguing that even these are empirically bound. I am fully agreed. The standpoint from which I called the former as formed out of directly empirically bound notions is different, that is all.
Both the above (the grades of difficulty and ease of measuring a specific layer of causal activity within one process and a comparable or non-comparable layer of causal activity in another) must be measured in terms of certain modes of physical phenomena and certain scales set for these purposes. But this is not the case about the scale of infinity-finitude-zero, out of which we can eternally choose finitude for the measure of ease and difficulty of measuring a specific layer of causal activity without reference to any other.
The measure-difference between the causal activities is not the complexity, nor is it available to be termed so. Instead, complexity is the difference between (1) the ease and difficulty of measuring the one from within the phenomena issuing from certain layers of the physical process and the data created by us out of the phenomena, and (2) the ease and difficulties of measuring the same in the other.
In any case, this measure-difference of ease and difficulty with respect to the respective layers of the processes can naturally be only of certain layers of activity within the processes, and not of all the layers and kinds of activity in them both. Evidently, in the absence of scale-based comparison, their complexity cannot be termed a high or a low complexity considered within itself. Each such must be compared with at least another such measurementally determined layer/s of process in another system.
3. Extent of Complexity outside and within Complexity
The question arises now as to whether any process under complexity inquiry has other layers of activity arising from within themselves and from within the layers themselves from which directly the phenomena have issued and have generated the data within the bodily, conscious, and cognitive system of the subjects and their instruments.
Here the only possible answer is that there is an infinite number of such layers in any finite-content physical processual entity, and within any layer of a process we can find infinite other sub-layers, and between the layers and sub-layers there are finite causal connections, because every existent has parts that are in Extension and Change.
The infinite number of such complexity layers are each arrangeable in a scale of decremental content-strength in such a way that no finite-content process computes up to infinite content-strength. This does not mean that there are no actual differences between any two processes in the complexity of their layers of activity, or in the total activity in each of them.
Again, what I attempt to suggest here is that the measured complexity of anything or of any layer of anything is just a scale-based comparison of the extent of our capacity to discover all the complexity within one process or layer of process, as compared to the same in another process or layer of process.
4. Possible Generalizations of Complexity
Any generalization of processes in themselves concerning their complexity proper (i.e., the extent of our capacity to discover all the complexity within one process or one layer of activities of a process) must now be concluded to be in possession of only the quantitative qualities that never consist of a specific or fixed scale-based number, because the comparison is on a range-scale of ‘more than’ and ‘less than’.
This generalization is what we may at the most be able to identify regarding the complexity within any specific process without any measuremental comparison with another or many others. Non-measuremental comparison is therefore easier and truer in the general sense; and measuremental comparison is more applicable in cases of technical and technological achievements.
The latter need not be truer than the former, if we accept that what is truer must be more general than specific. Even what is said merely of one processual object must somehow be applicable to anything that is of the same nature as the specific processual object. Otherwise, it cannot be a generalizable truth. For this reason, the former seems to be truer than the latter.
Now there are only three possibilities for the said sort of more general truth on comparative complexity: accepting the infinite-finite-zero values as the only well-decidable values. I have called them the Maximal-Medial-Minimal (MMM) values in my work of 2018, namely, Gravitational Coalescence Paradox and Cosmogenetic Causality in Quantum Astrophysical Cosmology.
Seen from this viewpoint, everything physically existent has great processual-structural complexity, and this is neither infinite nor zero, but merely finite – and impossible to calculate exactly or even at any satisfactory exactitude within a pre-set scale, because (1) the layers of a process that we attempt to compute is but a mere portion of the process as such, (2) each part of each layer has an infinite number of near-infinitesimal parts, and (3) we are not in a position to get at much depths and breadths into all of these at any time.
Hence, the two rationally insufficient conclusions are:
(1) The narrowly empirical-phenomenologically measuremental, thus empirically partially objective, and simultaneously empirically sufficiently subjective amount of complexity (i.e., the extent of our capacity and incapacity to discover all the complexity) in any process by use of a scale-level comparison of two or more processes.
(2) The complexity of entities without having to speak about their existence in every part in Extension-Change and the consequently evident Universal Causality.
These are the empirically highly insulated, physical-ontologically insufficiently realistic sort of concept of complexity that the sciences entertain and can entertain. Note that this does not contradict or decry technological successes by use of scientific truths. But claiming them to be higher truths on complexity than philosophical truths is unjustifiable.
Now the following question is clearly answerable. What is meant by the amount of complexity that any existent physical process can have in itself? The only possible answer would be that of MMM, i.e., that the complexity within any specific thing is not a comparative affair within the world, but only determinable by comparing the complexity in physical processes with that in the infinitely active and infinitely stable Entity (if it exists) and the lack of complexity in the zero-activity and zero-stability sort of pure vacuum. It can also be made based on a pre-set or conventionalized arithmetic scale, but such cannot give the highest possible truth probability, even if it is called “scientific”.
MMM is the most realistic generalization beyond the various limit possibilities of scale-controlled quantities of our incapacity to determine the amount of complexity in any layer of processes, and without incurring exact numbers, qualifications, etc. The moment a clear measuremental comparison and pinning up the quantity is settled for, it becomes a mere scientific statement without the generality that the MMM realism offers.
Nonetheless, measuremental studies have their relevance in respect of their effects in specific technological and technical circumstances. But it must be remembered that the application of such notions is not directly onto the whole reality of the object set/s or to Reality-in-total, but instead, only to certain layers of the object set/s. Truths at that level do not have long life, as is clear from the history of the sciences and the philosophies that have constantly attempted to limit philosophy with the methods of the sciences.
5. Defining Complexity Closely
Consider any existent process in the cosmos. It is in a state of finite activity. Every part of a finite-content process has activity in every one of its near-infinitesimal parts. This state of having activity within is complexity. In general, this is the concept of complexity. It is not merely the extent of our inability to measure the complexity in anything in an empirical manner.
Every process taken in itself has a finite number of smaller, finite, parts. The parts spoken of here are completely processual. Nothing remains in existence if a part of it is without Extension or without Change. An existent part with finite Extension and Change together is a unit process when the cause part and the effect part are considered as the aspects or parts of the part in question.
Every part of a part has parts making every part capable of being a unit process and in possession of inner movements of extended parts, all of which are in process. This is what I term complexity. Everything in the cosmos is complex. We cannot determine the level of complexity beyond the generalized claim that complexity is normally limited within infinite or finite or zero, and that physical and biological processes in the cosmos come within the finitude-limit.
Hereby is suggested also the necessity of combining the philosophical truth about complexity and the scientific concept of the same for augmentation of theoretical and empirical-scientific achievements in the future. While determining scientifically the various natures and qualities of complexity, chaos, threshold states, etc. in a manner not connected to the philosophical concept of it based on the MMM method of commitment access to values of content and their major pertinents, then, scientific research will remain at an elementary level – although the present theoretical, experimental, and technological successes may have been unimaginably grand. Empirical advancement must be based on the theoretical.
Constant effort to differentiate anything from anything else strongly, by making differentiations between two or more processes and the procedures around them, is very much part of scientific research. In the procedural thrust and stress related to these, the science of complexity (and all other sciences, sub-sciences, etc.) suffer from the lack of ontological commitment to the existence of the processes in Extension-Change and Universal Causality.
The merely scientific attitude is due to a stark deficit of the most general and deepest possible Categories that can pertain to them, especially to Extension-Change and Universal Causality. Without these, the scientist will tend to work with isolated and specifically determined causal processes and identify the rest as non-causal, statistically causal, or a-causal!
6. Complexity in Consciousness
The above discussion shows that the common concept of complexity is not the foundation on which biological evolution, growth of consciousness, etc. can directly be based. I have plans to suggest a new concept.
Bibliography
(1) Gravitational Coalescence Paradox and Cosmogenetic Causality in Quantum Astrophysical Cosmology, 647 pp., Berlin, 2018.
(2) Physics without Metaphysics? Categories of Second Generation Scientific Ontology, 386 pp., Frankfurt, 2015.
(3) Causal Ubiquity in Quantum Physics: A Superluminal and Local-Causal Physical Ontology, 361 pp., Frankfurt, 2014.
(4) Essential Cosmology and Philosophy for All: Gravitational Coalescence Cosmology, 92 pp., KDP Amazon, 2022, 2nd Edition.
(5) Essenzielle Kosmologie und Philosophie für alle: Gravitational-Koaleszenz-Kosmologie, 104 pp., KDP Amazon, 2022, 1st Edition.
A TRANS-PRAGMATIC TRUTH PARADIGM
FOR SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY,
AND PHILOSOPHY
Raphael Neelamkavil. Ph.D., Dr. phil.
1. OBLIGATION TO PRAGMATISM AS A NEGATIVE TRIGGER
My concept of universally real trigger-causation in all existents is philosophically and scientifically indebted to the most glaringly universal instances of the ‘effects only’, ‘use only’, ‘limited space’, ‘limited time’, ‘limited causal roots’ type of pragmatic bases of the functioning principles of most philosophical and scientific schools and disciplines and their effects on all aspects of life.
In spite of such effects, the majority of humanity, especially the scientific community – does not learn to bring about a radical re-definition of the pragmatically defined concept of attainable truth. This is the proof of the relevance of a re-formulation of the same by the science of philosophy and by scientific philosophy in the realization and growth of science, technology, etc.
Just within the pragmatic attitude lives and functions a big majority of the humanity. Specifically, the scientific community acts consciously by inhibiting wholesome ideas, actions, and changes in the usually pragmatic functioning of (1) every possible realm of knowledge, including the human project of thinking, feeling, curing, facilitating, etc. or (2) any other realms of life in any given environment and society.
The only given justification has been the urgency (1) to experience “the realizably” theoretical and practical effects of all ideas, actions, and changes as early as possible, (2) to have the awaited “long-term effects” at the earliest, (3) to have it in abundance “in the here-and-now”, etc.
Pragmatism has been the backbone of almost all, most basic and less basic, definitions, practical procedures, etc. in logic, mathematics, physical sciences, biological sciences, human sciences, etc. Pragmatism acquires constantly new definitions in history of science and philosophy.
By ‘pragmatism’ is meant not exactly and not only the philosophical school under this name. Of course, this philosophical school extols the effects-only and use-only theory beyond the emphasis it assigns to theoretical breadths and depths. In general, such emphasis plays an exaggerated role in determining the forms of access to what humanity needs in terms of life and truth. It is mainly the sciences that effectively inhibit any efforts beyond pragmatism.
The suggested new paradigm beyond pragmatism would be: The more the certainty and generality of the theoretical breadths and depths assured by the axiomatic foundations – the greater the truth of the specific, the individual, and the delineated results of such a founded philosophy and science within life and knowing.
I shall explain in other words the pragmatic state of the sciences. After all theoretical and experimental search, truth is being concluded to – albeit for a short time and with some or much assurance of probabilistic tenability – in a manner that is FULLY representative of the state of affairs sought to be represented.
The representation of an objectual process in a truth statement is taken to directly correspond or correspond enough to reality, when the theoretically antecedent instruments are universal enough to produce the knowledge about anything specific. But the antecedents are never universal enough, if the theoretical foundations are not broader than the theoretical grounding available in the positive sciences or formal sciences.
This sort of truth-representation is what knows, feels, cures, and facilitates life today, purportedly “in all respects”. Hence, pragmatism is merely be about the method of approaching truths and activities. But it has not been sufficiently about concluding something from a swarm of structures of theoretical generality and superiority, which should have worked in terms of theoretical and practical applicability in all possible specific cases available in any theory that is trans-pragmatic.
2. EXAMPLES OF OVEREMPHASIS ON PRAGMATISM
One example where the attitude of more general theoretical justification is missing is in the diverse theoretical constructs in physics. Anyone can characterise one of the many reasons as the blind and pragmatic acceptance, by many physicists, of the velocity of light as sacrosanct everywhere in the cosmos. In fact, we have been able to prove the velocity of light only with respect to our part of the universe, and have accepted it as the highest for all parts of the cosmos solely because we have not been able to detect one of higher value.
This is due to the overemphasis on pragmatism in science. Using such a limit velocity in science for technological success is a necessity, but insisting on it even in the broadest possible theoretical situations is cheap adherence. In this respect, the matter that none can accept is the way in which Einstein’s postulation of c as the reference velocity to measure and calculate other but lower velocities becomes accepted as the final proof of the very postulation!
What else is it but the consequence of strict pragmatism in the method and procedure of inquiry without enough antecedent theoretical broadening in the foundations, method, and procedure? This has debilitated science and philosophy of science for almost a century and a quarter. How to dispense with such pragmatism in science and philosophy?
Additionally, the declaration that the observed source-independence of luminal velocity is somehow a basis for accepting a background ether for luminal velocity to hinge upon, is again another instance of overmuch pragmatism in the method and procedure of theorization without restricting strict pragmatism to drawing conclusions.
A second example of strict pragmatism is the way in which some absolutely spherical geometries and their topologies were and are even now being used to geometrize the universe. They tend even to conclude from such a presupposition that the universe is spatially and temporally isotropic, and then tend to dispense with the effects of the locally causal temporal dimension on the universe.
Yet another example is the blind acceptance of the pragmatically probabilistic interpretation of quantum physics as the essence of all physics and of all physically existent reality, whereby most physicists attempt to accept a merely epistemic sort of causality in physical reality and call it “probabilistic causality”, and then start using it as if it were physical-ontological causality.
What we can understand (probabilistically, epistemically) need not be the same as how nature is out there! What in fact is the probabilistic causality that acts in physical processes with some parts of it being causal and other parts not causal or even acausal? Is not such a concept of causality a silly idea of causation based on epistemic determinism getting converted into ontological determinism, which then is converted into the actual nature of existent processes? The unnecessarily pragmatic ways of fixing scientific practices is the main reason behind it.
3. A TRANS-PRAGMATIC PARADIGM OF TRUTH
In preparing a short introduction to the following critical presentation of the aftermaths of pragmatism, let me put in gist the new paradigm that is necessitated here: (1) Truth is not merely a subject-object act. (2) Truth is not merely an act of tending towards. (3) Truth is much more an act of epochal finalizing of constant insertion of foundational breadths and depths in the state of affair / process being inquired into, based on the most universal of all conceptual foundations and driving them down onto the particular, but based fully and always on the foundations of the total in a mutually related context.
That is, strict pragmatism should be exercised only at the instance of concluding to the final, strictly contextual, statement and action, and that too under the provision of further constant inquiry and enhancement of the descriptions, conclusions, etc.
My contention concerning strict methodological pragmatism is that, although the pragmatic attitude has its rights over thought and practice, it (1) inevitably foregoes many fundamental (most broadly based on the totality of all existents) aspects of reality, environment, and life and, (2) in consequence, unbridles back onto the same reality, environment, and life the epistemically guided ontological aftermaths of the negligence of the said fundamental theoretical aspects and necessities of reality and of knowledge – and consequently of course onto life and the human ideal of comprehension of reality and life.
Hence, it is high time that philosophy and science eliminate as much as possible the defective, strictly pragmatic attitude from their foundations while safeguarding some of the necessary aspects of pragmatism merely when they create advantages via accessing conclusions and actions, without causing philosophical, scientific, and human-life tragedies.
4. SOME CONSEQUENCES OF PRAGMATISM ON SCIENCE AND LIFE
As there are countless disadvantageous aftermaths of pragmatism in knowledge and life, some of them may be cited in the following:
(1) International, national, and local politics purposefully manipulating natural resources, economies, societies, religions, and nations for power and wealth, even to the extent of impoverishing the majority of a continent or nation.
(2) National and international poverty alleviation programs and techniques which increase the rich-to-poor differences by perpetuating pragmatically charitable corruption in industrial, educational, health, and governmental ventures.
(3) Educational systems and methods becoming partially aimed at creating a vast majority of cheap labourers for the industry especially in poor nations, by fast-paced and obscurantist information-encrypting of sciences, humanities, and languages in educational institutions, without reference to the history of future-oriented achievements in discoveries, ideas, theories, events, programs, etc.
(4) Most media entities creating sensational partial truths as the short-time highest truths at the behest of politicians, industry, research & development, or at least against them, meant finally for easy financial gains and thereafter for practising political and scientific amnesia at the same truths.
(5) The pharma and health industry adopting and justifying as sacrosanct the mechanist-causalist manners of producing medicaments and treating patients – encouraged mainly by the successes of naturally necessitated urgency in such interventions – and producing chemical medicines so non-holistically (i.e., in ways that do not involve material interactions more minute and life-based than in chemical interactions) that the methods of production and treatment necessarily have more than intended side-effects creating ever more patients.
(6) Industries, technological companies, media entities, media producers, and a few nations specializing in hyperbolically creating and satisfying unhealthy and unessential psychological and physical needs and increasing easy production of commodities for quick-growth in economy, resulting in universal pollution of genes and life-forms.
(7) Constitutions of nations and justice-dispensation systems formulated in ways that normally foster or at least merely facilitate the exigencies of the powerful and rich and possibly get favoured in return.
(8) Governmental law-enforcement arms which work on old-fashioned and corruption-facilitating machinery and, from time to time, can milk the rich and powerful by way of protection of their pragmatic socio-economic attitudes.
(9) The more than two centuries of spread of chemical fertilizing methods of agriculture by blocking the spread of great natural cultivation methods and researches into them, callously titling the latter “unscientific”, and thereby chemically cluttering the whole cultivable and life-worthy earth.
(10) The millennia-old mammoth culinary science and eating culture that encourage tasty junk consumption at home and outside, successfully encouraging and perpetuating the enjoyment of quick pleasure from the one end of the tongue to the other.
(11) The way in which human beings, for millennia, exhaust and emaciate themselves in pursuit of quick joys, vastly unaware of the merely brain-based connotative nature of quick joys.
(12) The methods of finance acquisition and offspring-maintenance in families, societies, nations, and religions, oriented at self-perpetuation and attaining – for that same reason – nothing of it.
(13) Eco-compatibility efforts all over the nations by governments themselves, that help further industrialize under cover of grand holistic statements and schemes.
(14) Economic, educational, cultural, health, and other diverse forms of solution of problems of humanity, in which policy makers never go for the deepest roots of maladies: e.g., the real reason why people build houses on and cultivate (e.g., occupying and cultivating steep hill-sides, thus inundating the high ranges), is not merely craving, but the high rate of population growth, and yet no government acts in this direction ethically and democratically via education.
(15) The manner in which the very oppressed groups become much like the oppressor groups and indulge in pragmatic tactics against their own status, and consume the effects of such self-poisoning.
(16) The universal ignominy to what the experiences and the universal phenomenon of rational reflections of the old and dying are – including those of former scientists, technocrats, and scholars.
(17) The wide-spread technocratic and allopathic health-scientific methods of nipping all nature-infused living methods by blanket-terming them as unscientific.
(18) Religions’ millennia-old and continuing promise of a quick and miraculous transfer to a body-less state similar to that of a supposedly vacuous Absolute, instead of the more possible and reasonable “continued growth” of love-bodies as fully well caused by the same kind of growth during the lifetime of individuals and societies in imitation of an infinitely active love-bodied Source.
(19) A section of scientists and philosophers wilfully presupposing that anthropomorphized expressions and theologies based on them are the meaning of religion and spirituality, and basing their science, technology, medicine, and philosophy, etc. on notions that counteract these vicious concepts that should not have been the meaning of religion and spirituality.
(20) Some or many of those involved pragmatically in the above thought patterns and sciences trade their guns against supposed realities that do not exist in the sciences and in the world out there, thus beating in the air to kill some form of ideas that do not exist where they think them to exist.
The most suitable examples today in theoretical sciences are Russell, Wittgenstein, and many others in the early half of the 20thcentury, and Stephen Hawking, Richard Dawkins, Lawrence Krauss, and a host of others in the latter half of the 20th century and thereafter. The ways in which the likes of these experts have unquestioningly been using the already existing pragmatism in physics, cosmology, and philosophy is symbolic and emblematic of pragmatism as a cut-throat methodology in effect.
Technological examples are the ways in which Newton’s physics and mechanistic chemistry, biology, economics, etc. are being used today to facilitate money-flow into the industry by disregarding their health-related and environmental aftermaths.
Bibliography
(1) Gravitational Coalescence Paradox and Cosmogenetic Causality in Quantum Astrophysical Cosmology, 647 pp., Berlin, 2018.
(2) Physics without Metaphysics? Categories of Second Generation Scientific Ontology, 386 pp., Frankfurt, 2015.
(3) Causal Ubiquity in Quantum Physics: A Superluminal and Local-Causal Physical Ontology, 361 pp., Frankfurt, 2014.
(4) Essential Cosmology and Philosophy for All: Gravitational Coalescence Cosmology, 92 pp., KDP Amazon, 2022, 2nd Edition.
(5) Essenzielle Kosmologie und Philosophie für alle: Gravitational-Koaleszenz-Kosmologie, 104 pp., KDP Amazon, 2022, 1st Edition.
Clinical > book. Therefore, if a barber was trained and had a track record of successfully giving a very specific surgery then, is more likely to succeed than an MD who only has read books without clinical experience.
Without AT LEAST limited free will, humans would NOT be able to measure parsimony.
My most thought provoking posts so far:
6)
RESPECTFULLY, I believe counterintuitively and anecdotally, sometimes those who abandon Judaism, Christianity and or Judaism for Jesus , gravitate to less epistemologically found beliefs such as determinism, scientific materialism, reincarnation, etc.
The self is NOT an illusion or reason would be impossible.
From the perspective of epistemology, is there absolute truth in marketing?
Respectfully, which esoteric beliefs are the least plausibly true ? Why?
1)Scientific materialism because the fundamental choice to reason, DESPITE UNCERTAINTY, requires more than material. Source:
2)Reincarnation because if every entity is unique, or might as well be due to UNCERTAINTY, then sharing spirits is less likely. Source:
Made this for educational purposes, will delete it soon
Afterlife: Universalist Christian Heaven
Epistemology: falsifiability and skeptical empiricism
Ethics: deduced from tradition, then risk analysis, and lastly skin in the game. Manifested as natural law(moderation and negative utilitarianism), political correctness.
Politics: progressivism and open society.
Are sciences more of a continuum from hard to soft than those two as discrete categories? How? Why? I think the former. My book here somewhat touches on that question:
Who agrees deduction practically begins theology and epistemology? How? Why?
My answer: I agree deduction practically begins theology and epistemology because so many answers are unknown, thus deducing is a useful method. Stimulus:
In order to read a foreign language text, should one first empathize with the author and understand the disincentives and risks? Why? How?
Who agrees platitudes from the intellectually disabled should receive more tolerance? How? Why?
Are disincentives the arche? How? Why?
My answer: Disincentives are highly probably the arche. How?: Any entity is more guided more by disincentives than by incentives. Why?: Disincentives may be the arche assuming the least but following the most evidence. Two other explanations for arches may be risks and or vibrations.
Source for vibrations:
Thesis The Arche May be Vibrations
Source for risks:
Call for Papers
Kanz Philosophia: A Journal for Islamic Philosophy and Mysticism
We invite researchers in the field of Islamic Philosophy and Sufism to publish the results of their research in Kanz Philosophia for Vol. 10, Number 1 June 2024, and Vol. 10, Number 2 December 2024.
The manuscript must be written in good academic English.
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📌Submission Deadlines:
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Also called the conventionalist interpretation of physics success this is a main counterargument against the ni-miracles thesis i.e physics success cannot attributes to biz are epistemology or Luck but it having endorsed a proper, rigorous and fruiitious epistemology
Although there are other arguments, like the realist argument, I believe it is the stronger counterargument to the idealization of physics science's prowess.
How useful is the heuristic that if both sides of a debate are unfalsifiable then they may be a false dichotomy? My answer: The heuristic that is both sides of a debate are unfalsifiable then they may be a false dichotomy is very useful because it is probably the case for practical reasons. Examples include but may not be limited to (evolutionism or creationism), (freewill or determinism), (rationalism or empiricism).
I'm researching obesity and its effect on CVD I have selected 6 primary resources I have gone through all the research but I do not understand how to apply Explain the research philosophy here the assignment question please assist me (4. Drawing upon appropriate literature, please compare and contrast the methodologies of the identified studies. Try to identify what the strengths and/or limitations of each study are and how they may affect our confidence in the findings. You may wish to consider the basic study design, sampling strategy, sample size, data collection procedures, statistical methods, or other confounding influences. You must demonstrate criticality in your analysis (approx. 500 words. 20% of overall mark).
THE EPISTEMOLOGY PRESUPPOSED BY PHYSICS AND OTHER SCIENCES
Raphael Neelamkavil, Ph.D., Dr. phil.
((This is the second part of the series in THE LOGIC, EPISTEMOLOGY, AND ONTOLOGY OF PHYSICS AND OTHER SCIENCES.))
1. The Logic of Physics (See the previous discussion's lead-text)
2. The Epistemology behind Physics
The whole of logic, epistemology, ontology, etc. are not the exclusive property of physics, or of any other particular science, or of all the sciences together. Each of them may apply the various general logical, epistemological, and ontological principles in ways suitable to their disciplines, but cannot claim that theirs is the genuine or the possibly best logic, epistemology, ontology, etc.
There is yet another manner, beyond the sciences, wherein (1) the object range and viewpoint range become the broadest possible in epistemology, and (2) the epistemological manner in which the two are connected becomes satisfactory enough to explain both the aspects and the procedures involved between them. This is a philosophical version of epistemology. Even this manner is not complete without including the various logics, epistemologies, and ontologies of the particular sciences.
Before pointing out the special manner in which physics could use the more general aspects of epistemology in itself, let me mention a general trend in science, especially physics. I have seen many students of physics and mathematics mistaking the logical ways in which they do experiments and theories as the same as the conceptual foundations of physics and mathematics.
They do not even think of the epistemology of physics. The clear reason for this is that their epistemology is a crude correspondence theory of truth, and this is outdated. Take any of the best physicists, and we can see in their works the underlying undefined epistemology being closer to the correspondence theory of truth than anything else. I would like to suggest in the following a clear spine of epistemological rudiments for physics.
The pragmatism and scientism at the foundations of practical physics does not accept anything other than the correspondence theory as prescriptive of all the truths of science. Of course, the amount of finality achieved in truths will be the measure of tenability of their truth-probability. But this is to be reserved to the most general truths derivable from any science or philosophy. Low-level truths are much beyond the purview of correspondence between the objectual and the theoretical. Unaware of these facts, most physicists take the difference lightly.
It is a pity that the students of the sciences and also philosophy students with scientistic orientations even think of their ways of permitting truth correspondence to all their truths as the sole possession of scientists, which they suppose are being usurped from philosophy in the course of the past centuries in such a way that philosophy will have ever less reason to exist, or no more reason to exist. Imaginably, in this pride they are encouraged by their presumption of possession of the scientific temper in an exceptional manner.
More evidently, there were and there are physicists holding that their use of logic, epistemology, ontology, etc. is final and that all other details being done by other sciences, especially by philosophy, are a mere waste of time. If you want me to give an example, I suggest that you watch some of the YouTube interviews with Stephen Hawking, where he declares philosophy as a waste of time, or as an unscientific affair. The same sort of claim is to be seen being made by many mathematicians: that logic is a by-product of mathematics, and that philosophers are falsely proud of having logic as their methodology.
The reason why the whole of logic does not belong to the sciences is that the viewpoint from which sensation, thought, and feeling may be exercised in the broadest possible manner is not exhausted even by totaling all the object ranges of all the sciences. Each of them does logic in a manner limited by its object range. How then can their logic be the best possible? There is one and only one general science of which the viewpoint is the broadest. It is that science in which the viewpoint is that of the direct implications of the To Be of Reality-in-total.
Against this backdrop, although the following definition might seem queer for many physicists, mathematicians, and other scientists, there are reasons why I define here epistemology for use in physics. The following definition itself will clarify the reasons:
The epistemology behind physics is (1) the science of justifications (2) for the systemic fact, the systemic manner of achieving, the enhancement of the systemic manner of achieving, and the foundations of systems (3) of rationally derivable and explicable theoretical consequences of human efforts (4) to grasp the connection between physically existent reality and their pertinent realities of all sorts (5) in an asymptotic approach of truth-correspondence from the procedures of knowing (in terms of the pertinent realities of existent realities) onto the physically existent processes of reality, (6) in a spirally broadening and deepening manner of truth probability, (7) which serves to achieve ever better approximations of the epistemological ideal of knowing, namely, Reality-in-general, (8) starting from reality-in-particular, and (9) by use of the highest theoretical generalities pertaining to Reality-in-total and its parts, namely, reality-in-particular.
The epistemology of physics does not take the viewpoint of the To Be of Reality-in-total. But it must obey the primary implications of To Be and the viewpoint of the To Be of Reality-in-total. What these implications are, will be treated below, under “3. The Ontology of Physics”. Epistemology in philosophy may be slightly more general than the epistemology of physics, in the sense that philosophy takes the viewpoint of all physical processes that exist and attempt to view every reality from that viewpoint alone. If not, philosophy has no justification for existence.
Naturally, the epistemology of the sciences will not be so general as that of philosophy. But obedience to it is better for the epistemology of physics; and the advantages of such obedience will be seen in the results of such physics and such sciences.
The epistemology of physics, therefore, will attempt to theorize, know, and predict all that exist, but from the viewpoint exclusively of experimentally / empirically verifiable methods based on what is directly or indirectly before us, namely, the physical processes at our reach. The epistemology of systematically and systemically (i.e., systematically of systems of systems … ad libitum) moving in the use of logic from the given existent physical processes to the details of the not immediately given but ever more minute or ever more distant physical existents is the epistemology of physics. The above definition would, in my opinion, be sufficient to cover as broad and minute procedures as possible in physics. Time has come to appropriate it in physics, lest much advantage be lost for too long.
Not that philosophy does not trust this approach of physics. But philosophy looks for the Categorial presuppositions of existence behind all that is verifiable or verified empirically and empirical-theoretically. These presuppositions are the starting points and guiding principles of philosophy. There is a stark difference between a methodology of this kind and the methodology of basing everything on the truths derived from empirical and empirical-theoretical research. Now from this viewpoint you may judge the following suggestions and determine whether the epistemology of doing physical science is as broad as that of philosophizing.
Every moment, our body-brain nexus is continuously but finitely in contact with itself and with a finite extent of the environment, more or less simultaneously, but in differing intensities, no matter however elementary. The primary mode of this is through sensation, using all available and necessary aspects of it as the case may be. Thought and feeling are possible only in continuity with sensation, and never without it.
But one special characteristic of the human brain differentiating it from others is that sensation, feeling, and thought can very consciously induct into, and consequently deduce from the presuppositions of, all that exist – no matter whether they are a finite environment or infinite – and all these solely from the finite experience from the finite environment at hand. This seems to be absent in less human living beings.
Moreover, the second, but more forgotten, characteristic of the human brain differentiating it from others is that sensation, thought, and feeling are affective, tending to itself and to others, in the broadest sense of the term ‘affective’. It is the manner in which every human being tends in his/her sensation, feeling, and thought. Hence, all processes of knowing will be coloured by affection.
The manner and then the so-constructed broader background in which sensation, feeling, and thought take place is affection, which we term also love in a very general sense. Sensation, feeling, and thought are the three interconnected modes of tending of the body-brain to itself and to the environment, tend always to connect itself with the environment.
But here too the important differentiating characteristic in human body-brains is their capacity to tend to the environment beyond the immediate environments, and further beyond them, etc. ad libitum. There is nothing wrong in theoretically considering that there is the tendency in humans to converting this sort of ad libitum to ad infinitum, irrespective of whether these environments can really go ever broader at infinity in the content of matter-energy within Reality-in-total. Infinity is another term here for generalizing.
Reality consists of existent reality and realities that pertain to existent realities in their groups. Existent realities are clear enough to understand. Realities pertinent to existent realities are never to be taken as belonging to just one existent reality. They are always those generalities that belong to many existent realities in their respective natural kind. These generalities are what I call ontological universals.
All generalizations tend beyond onto the infinite perfection of the essential aspects of the concepts pertaining to the object-range. Not that the object-range must be infinite. Instead, the tending presumes an infinitization due to the idealization involved in generalizations. This is a kind of infinitization that does not need an infinite Reality-in-total in existence. All the concepts that a human being can use are based in the infinitization of the essential aspects of the concepts in their ideality. But behind these mental ideals there are the ideals, namely, the ontological universals pertaining to the groups (natural kinds) of processual entities in the environment. These are the ideals in the things and are not in us. These too are idealizations at the realm of the natural kinds that form part of Reality-in-total.
Without loving in the sense of tending to, as human do, to the inner and outer environments in their generalities there is no sensation, feeling, and thought. The tending to need not be due to the love of the objects but due to the love of something that pertains to them or to the ontologically universal ideals pertaining to the objects. From this it is clear that the relation between the processual objects and the sensing-feeling-knowing mind is set by the ontological universals in the natural kinds of existent physical processes.
At the part of the mind there should be idealized universals of conceptual quality, because the ontological universals in natural kinds cannot directly enter and form concepts. This shows that the conceptual universals (called connotative universals) are the mental reflections of ontological universals that are in the natural kinds. In short, behind the epistemology of sensation, feeling, and thought there are the ontology and epistemology of loving in the sense of tending to, due to the otherness implied between oneself and the environment.
There may be philosophers and scientists who do not like the idea of love. I say, this is due to the many psychology-related prejudices prevalent in their minds. We need to ask ourselves what the major mode of exercitation of any activity in human beings, and none can doubt the role of love in epistemology. The physical foundations of love too are commonly to be shared with the foundations of other aspects of physical existence.
Such tending by the person is mediated within the person by the connotative universals. Their expression is always in terms of symbols in various languages. These are called denotative universals. Connotative universals get concatenated in the mind in relation to their respective brain elements and form thoughts and feelings. Their expression in language is by the concatenation of denotative universals and get formulated in languages as theories and their parts.
To put in gist the latter part of “2. The Epistemology of Physics”, I suggest that the ontological, connotative, and denotative universals and the love of human agents to these and the very existent processual entities are what facilitate knowledge. The psychological question as to what happens when one has no love does not have any consequence here, because psychology differentiates between love and non-love in terms of certain presumed expressions of love and non-love.
In the case of the natural course of life of humans, the choice is not between love and non-love, but instead, between increasing or decreasing love. We do not speak here of loving other human beings as a matter of ethical action. Instead, the point is that of the natural love that humans have for everything including for sensing, feeling, knowing, etc.
One might wonder here why I did not discuss mathematics as an epistemologically valid tool of physics and other sciences. I have already dealt with this aspect in many other discussion texts in ResearchGate, and hence do not expatiate on it here.
3. The Ontology behind Physics (soon to be given as a separate RG discussion session)
How does belief in reincarnation connect to applying rationalist epistemology?
What are the epistemological differences between critical rationalism and skeptical empiricism?
1. Grounded Physical-Ontological Categories behind Physics
Grounding can be of various levels and grades. I speak of grounding all sorts of concepts, procedure principles, procedure methods, and theories in any system of thought and science. It is unnecessary in this context to discuss the grounding of highly derivative concepts that occur much later in theories than those that appear while founding them with best-grounded foundations. I go directly to the case of what should be called the most Categorial concepts behind physics, on which physics is grounded.
These Categorial concepts cannot be merely from within physics but should be directly related to and facilitating physics in as many of its aspects as possible. The success of foundational Categories consists in that they serve to ground as many aspects as possible of the particular science or system. Concepts strictly and exclusively physical or generally scientific cannot be as useful as notions from beyond in order to serve as Categories. Evidently, this is because no scientific discipline or system can be grounded on itself and hence on its own concepts. This is clearly also part of the epistemological and ontological implications of the work of Godel.
Grounded ontological Categories are such that they are inevitably and exhaustively grounded in the To Be of Reality-in-total as the only exhaustive implications of To Be. All other Categories, as far as possible, must be derivative of the most primary Categories. The more the number of Categories within the Categorial system that do not derive from the primary Categories the worse for the self-evidence of the science or system within it.
Grounding is exhaustive in the sense that the Categories that ground all physics need nothing else to be a concept than the To Be of Reality-in-total. To Be is the source of the Categories. It happens to be that there are two such Categories that are inevitably and exhaustively grounded. I call them Extension and Change. Clarifications of their meaning, ontological significance, and epistemological and physical implications and follow.
As I said, preferably grounding must be on the surest notion of all, which is existence. I prefer to term it To Be. As far as thought, feeling, and sensation are concerned, To Be is a notion in al of them. But principally To Be must belong to the whole of Reality, and not to a few things. If anything and/or all processes of Reality are existent, then what exist are the parts of existent Reality. The first minimum guarantee hereof should be that existence should be non-vacuous. Non-vacuous signifies that each possesses or contains whatever is possible within its existence in the given measurementally spatio-temporal context (which, as shall soon be clear, belong ontologically to the Extension-Change-wise existence of things).
3. Definitions of Universals, Extension-Change, Causality, and Unit Process
Even the minimum realism in thought, feeling, and sensation has for its principal conditions (1) the ontological primacy of universal qualities / natures that belong to groups of entities (processes), where the groups are also called natural kinds in the analytic tradition, and then (2) the ultimate simplicity and indivisibility of the universal characteristics that pertain to all existents. Contrary to the infinite divisibility of existent matter-energy, universals as the characteristics of existent matter-energy conglomerations (of togethernesses of unit Processes) are ontologically ideal universals, and hence indivisible. These universals are ideal not because of our idealisation of the characteristics, but instead because they are the general characteristics of the natural kinds to which each existent belongs. Thus, it is important to keep in mind that ontological universals are not our idealizations.
The properties of things are built out of these simple ontological universals in the natural kinds. The vague reflections of simple ontological universals within our minds are conceptually connotative universals, which are conceptual ideals. And their linguistic reflections in minds and all kinds of symbolic instruments are denotative universals.
Connotative and denotative universals are epistemological universals, formed epistemically from the little contact that minds have with the phenomena (“showings-themselves”) from some layers of processual objects from out there. The properties of existent processual things (matter-energy particulars) are vaguely reflected in minds and languages through the connotative and denotative instrumentalization of concepts in order to reflect the things via phenomena in terms of the data created by minds out of them. Any theory that permits ontological primacy to epistemological universals is one of a range of theories yielding primacy to the perceiving mind over the perceived objects. This is anathema in any scientific or philosophical science, because things are not vacua.
Non-vacuous existence implies that existents are extended. This is one of the most important characteristics of existents. Extension implies having parts, compositionality. Any extended existent’s parts impart impact to some others. This is Change. Only extended existents can exert impacts on any other. As a result, the object that exerts impact gets in itself some impact within, which is nothing but the proof that an impact by one extended part implies movements and impact formation by its parts too, as a result of the overall impact formation in question which contains the inner parts’ impact formation within. The latter need not always have its effects merely within the parts but instead also outwards.
Extension and Change are the highest, deepest, and most general characteristics of all existents. Interestingly, existence in Extension-Change is itself the process that we have so far named causation. Hence, anything non-vacuously existent has Extension and Change not separately but together. This is the meaning of Universal Causality. Physics cannot dispense with this pre-scientific universal Law. No more shall quantum physicists or scientists from other disciplines tell us that quantum physics has some sort of non-causality within! Any causal unit of existents in which the causal part and the effect part may be termed a process. Processuality is yet another important characteristic of existents, but we formulate it as Process, which represents the matter-energy units that there can be.
By this have clearly been set up three physical-ontological Categories of physics: Extension, Change, Causality, and Process. Space and time are merely epistemic categories. They cannot characterize existent processes. Ontological universals, as the characteristics of existent matter-energy conglomerations, are of togethernesses of unit Processes. Ontological universals are therefore ontologically ideal universals belonging (pertaining) to some natural kinds. The Categories as ontological universals belong to Reality-in-total, and not merely some natural kinds.
That external reality must be described by non human entities i.e math is a consequence if the objectivity trait if external reality.
Some social scientists dismiss both objevtivity and the existence of external reality. They even undermine the epistemological function "describe" as it lacks criticality, a main component and priority of humanities.
But description in science is exact, is illuminating if it ever fones around partly because it is a main function to achieve about external reality.
To go one step further, scientists explain the increased involvement of math in science by the fact that it aids the objectivity of this description.
What do you thing about all this?
Do you agree with statement?
Do you find any rightness in social scientists' dismissal of external reality as basis for acquiring knowledge?
The 45,000-Year-Old Pig Painting in Indonesia may be the oldest known "Art" representation [1]. “Art” embodies the idea of imagination and creativity, “Science” refers to innovation and progress. This gives intuition that "Science" is bounded, unlike "Art" which is limitless. The same goes for philosophy, except this one integrates a desire to ask questions, understand, argue, and respond to material and immaterial issues that concern humans, their lives, and their environment. All contributions on the topic are welcome!
Illustration: Scientists estimate this pig painting was drawn 45,500 years ago. Source [1]
I am definitely NOT an Objectivist. I am part leftist and part liberal. But this is a great epistemological quote:
“You can avoid reality, but you cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding reality”-Ayn Rand
There are so many interpretations of Peirce in the research literature that the more I read the more confused I become. Can anyone please explain how Peirce attends to epistemological and ontological matters in his pragmatism/pragmaticism? Thank you in advance, Janet Christopher, PhD Candidate.
I just need to know how these philosophical backgrounds should be explained in a study?
ESSENTIAL LOGIC, EPISTEMOLOGY, AND ONTOLOGY BEHIND PHYSICS, COSMOLOGY AND SCIENCES OF ALL DESCRIPTIONS
Raphael Neelamkavil, Ph.D., Dr. phil.
1. The Logic behind Physics
Physics students begin with meso-world experiments and theories. Naturally, at the young age, they get convinced that the logic thinking and research as applied to the meso-world level of physical phenomena that they follow is identical with the ideal of scientific method and hence there is nothing more general and advanced. Common social convictions on scientific temper may further confirm them in this belief. It then becomes a faith for them.
This has far-reaching consequences in the formation of the concept of science and of the logic of science, because the majority such students do not advance far forward, they fail to get the meaning of the foundations of the sciences, and thus remain spreading the elementary concept of science belonging to the meso-world logical applications. And as they get surprised at the quantum revolution, they tend to think or write books on topics like: “the whole universe is within the quanta in an atom”, because they think that the foundations of science are all questioned and set topsy-turvy by quantum physics!
But unquestionably, it is not very difficult to realize that even the quantum-physically upset sense of the logic behind the application of the scientific method is almost the same old manner of realizing (1) the ideal of scientific method and (2) the more general ideal of reason, namely, observe, hypothesize, verify, theorize, attempt to falsify for experimental and theoretical advancements, etc. upon meso-world realities, phenomena, data, etc.
Do teachers and professors of physics or of other sciences (1) instruct their students early enough on the advantages of thinking and experimenting in accordance with the above-mentioned fundamental fact of all scientific practice being founded on ever-better definable foundations of physics that are clearly based on the existence of physical objects as processes, or (2) make them capable of realizing the significance of this in the course of time? I think that they do not.
This shows that physicists (and for that matter other scientists) fail to a great extent at empowering themselves and their students in favour of the growth of science, thought, and life. The logic being followed in the above-said elementary mode of practice of scientific method at earlier stages of instruction, naturally, becomes for the students the genuine form of logic, instead of being an instantiation of the ideal of logic as reason.
This seems to be the case in most of the practices and instruction of all sciences till today. A change of the origin, justification, and significance of the use of logic in physics from the very start of instruction in the sciences is the solution for this problem. The change must be in the foundations and in the instructions on the foundations. Even at elementary stages of instruction this can be done, just like the SI units are being taught effectively very early in the school.
All humans equate (1) the physical-ontologically grounded and non-grounded forms of logic of each science, and even logic as such, with (2) reason as such. Reason as such, in fact, is more generic of all kinds of logic, and must be taken as that which must be realized in logic. But this attitude is not being followed in any science as of now. This has been my observation so far.
Practically none of the professors (of physics as well as of other sciences) terms the version of logic of their science as an instantiation of reason, which may be accessed ever better as the science eventually grows into something more elaborate and complex. Hence, a foretaste of the same given in form of the simple foundations of all sciences at the very start may go a long way to enhance the growth of science and human life. Physicist gets more and more skilled at reasoning only as and when she/he wants to grow continuously into a genuine physicist. The number of such persons is small. Increasing this number is one of the aims of the above-said kind of instruction in the sciences.
As the same students enter the study of recent developments in physics like quantum physics, relativity, nano-physics (Greek nanos, “dwarf”; in physics, @ 10-9), atto-physics (@ 10-18), cosmology, etc., they forget to make place for the strong mathematical effects that are due by reason of the conceptual and processual paradoxes which in turn are due to epistemological and physical-ontological differences between the object-sizes and the sizes of ourselves / our instruments. Some of the best examples of physicists forgetting the foundations of physics in existence are the Uncertainty Principle, the statistical interpretation of QM, cosmic singularity, quantum-cosmological multiverse from quantum vacua, counterfactual multiverse, etc.
They tend to believe that some of these and similar physics may defy our (meso-physical) manner of using logic and its source, namely, reason – but by this they mistakenly intend that all or many forms of logic and reason would have to fail if such instances of advanced physics are accepted in all of physics. As a result, again, their logic tends to continue to be that of the same meso-world level as has been taken while they did elementary levels of physics.
Does this not mean that the ad hoc make-believe interpretations of the logic of the foundations of QM, quantum cosmology, etc. are the culprits that naturally make the logic of traditional physics inadequate as the best representative of the logic of nature? In short, in order to find a common platform, the logic of traditional and recent branches of physics must improve so to adequate itself to nature’s logic. Nature’s logic is more than logic and its source, reason. Nature’s logic is the source of reason and thus of logic.
Why do I not suggest that the hitherto logic of physics be substituted by quantum logic, relativity logic, thermodynamic logic, nano-logic, atto-logic, or whatever other logic of any recent branch of physics that may be imagined? One would substitute logic in this manner only if one is overwhelmed by what purportedly is the logic of the new branches of physics.
But, in the first place, I wonder why logic should be equated directly with reason. The attempt should always be to bring the logic of physics in as much correspondence with the logic of nature as possible, so that reason in general can get closer to the latter. This must be the case not merely with physicists, but also with scientists from other disciplines and even from philosophy, mathematics, and logic itself.
Therefore, my questions are: What is the foundational reason that physicists should follow and should not lose at any occasion? Does this, how does this, and should this get transformed into forms of logic founded on a more general sort of physical reason? Wherein does such reason consist, and where does such reason exist? Can there be a form of logic in which the logical laws depend not merely on the micro- or mega- or meso-size of objects or the epistemological level available at the given object sizes, but instead, on the universal characteristics of all that exist? Or, should various logics be used at various occasions, like in the case of the suggested quantum logic, counterfactual logic, etc.?
Just like logic is not to be taken as a bad guide by citing the examples of the many logicians, scientists, and “logical” human beings doing logic non-ideally, I believe that there is a kernel of reason behind physics, justified solely on the most basic and universal characteristics of physical existents. These universals cannot belong solely to physics, but instead, to all the sciences, because they belong to all existents.
This kernel of reason in physics is to be insisted upon at every act of physics, even if many physicists (and other scientists and philosophers) may naturally not ensure that kernel in their work. I suggest that ensuring this involves not merely the constant attempt to formulation of nature’s logic in our reason and its instantiations in logic. It involves what can lead to the said results – and that is to formulate the very foundational logic of physics based on the generalities of all that exist and on the generalities of knowing all that exist.
I shall discuss these possibly highest universals and connect them to logic meant as reason, when I elaborate on: 3. The Ontology behind Physics (ALSO a discussion in RG).
The matter on which physicists do logical work is existent matter-energy in its fundamental implications and the derivative implications from the fundamental ones. It cannot be the all sorts of posited unobservables which cannot at all exist as physical processes but only as ad hoc necessities of some theoretical procedures in physics that are considered as theoretical existents.
This fact is to be kept in mind while doing any logically acceptable work physics, because existent matter-energy corpora in processuality delineate all possible forms of use of logic in physics, which logic is properly to be termed nature’s reason. Physics (and other sciences) needs to create a mode of presentation of logic where impossible theoretical entities can naturally be ostracized from the scenario of physics. This is possible only if the necessary, most general, Categorial demands of physical existence are inducted in all forms of logic of physics.
Moreover, theoretical and experimental conclusions are not drawn merely by one subject (person) in physics for use by the same subject alone. Hence, we have the following two basic requirements to note in the use of logic in physics and the sciences: (1) the intersubjectively awaited necessity of human reason in its delineation in logical methods should be upheld at least by a well-informed community, and (2) the need for such reason behind approved physics should then be spread universally with an open mind that permits and requires further scientific advancements.
These will make future generations and generations to further question the genuineness of the logic of specific realization of reason, and constantly encourage attempts to falsify theories or their parts, so that physics can bring up more genuine instantiations of human reason. But is such human reason based on the reason active in nature? How to make it base itself on the reason in nature?
Although the above arguments and the following definition of the logic being followed in mainstream and traditional physics might look queer or at least new and unclear for many physicists, for many other scientists, for many mathematicians, and even for many logicians, I attempt here to define logic for use in physics as the fundamental aspect of reason that physics should uphold constantly in every argument and conclusion due from it:
The logic behind physics is (1) the methodological science (2) of approaching the best intersubjectively rational and structural consequences (3) in what may be termed thought (not in emotions) (4) in clear terms of ever higher truth-probability achievable in statements and conclusions (5) in languages of all kinds (ordinary language, mathematics, computer algorithms, etc.) (6) based on the probabilistically methodological use, (7) namely, of the rules of all sensible logics that exemplify the Laws of Identity, Non-contradiction, and Excluded Middle, (8) which in turn must pertain to the direct and exhaustive physical implications of “to exist”.
Here I have not defined logic in physics very simply as “the discipline of the laws and rules of thought”, “the methodic discipline of attaining truths”, etc., for obvious reasons clarified by the history of the various definitions of logic during the past centuries.
But here comes up another set of questions: Is the reason pertaining to physical nature the same as the most ideal form of human reason? From within the business of physics, how to connect the reason of physical nature with that of humans? I may suggest some answers from the epistemological and ontological aspects. But, before that, I would appreciate your responses in this regard too.
2. The Epistemology behind Physics
The whole of logic, epistemology, ontology, etc. are not the exclusive property of physics, or of any other particular science, or of all the sciences together. Each of them may apply the various general logical, epistemological, and ontological principles in ways suitable to their disciplines, but cannot claim that theirs is the genuine or the possibly best logic, epistemology, ontology, etc.
There is yet another manner, beyond the sciences, wherein (1) the object range and viewpoint range become the broadest possible in epistemology, and (2) the epistemological manner in which the two are connected becomes satisfactory enough to explain both the aspects and the procedures involved between them. This is a philosophical version of epistemology. Even this manner is not complete without including the various logics, epistemologies, and ontologies of the particular sciences.
Before pointing out the special manner in which physics could use the more general aspects of epistemology in itself, let me mention a general trend in science, especially physics. I have seen many students of physics and mathematics mistaking the logical ways in which they do experiments and theories as the same as the conceptual foundations of physics and mathematics.
They do not even think of the epistemology of physics. The clear reason for this is that their epistemology is a crude correspondence theory of truth, and this is outdated. Take any of the best physicists, and we can see in their works the underlying undefined epistemology being closer to the correspondence theory of truth than anything else. I would like to suggest in the following a clear spine of epistemological rudiments for physics.
The pragmatism and scientism at the foundations of practical physics does not accept anything other than the correspondence theory as prescriptive of all the truths of science. Of course, the amount of finality achieved in truths will be the measure of tenability of their truth-probability. But this is to be reserved to the most general truths derivable from any science or philosophy. Low-level truths are much beyond the purview of correspondence between the objectual and the theoretical. Unaware of these facts, most physicists take the difference lightly.
It is a pity that the students of the sciences and also philosophy students with scientistic orientations even think of their ways of permitting truth correspondence to all their truths as the sole possession of scientists, which they suppose are being usurped from philosophy in the course of the past centuries in such a way that philosophy will have ever less reason to exist, or no more reason to exist. Imaginably, in this pride they are encouraged by their presumption of possession of the scientific temper in an exceptional manner.
More evidently, there were and there are physicists holding that their use of logic, epistemology, ontology, etc. is final and that all other details being done by other sciences, especially by philosophy, are a mere waste of time. If you want me to give an example, I suggest that you watch some of the YouTube interviews with Stephen Hawking, where he declares philosophy as a waste of time, or as an unscientific affair. The same sort of claim is to be seen being made by many mathematicians: that logic is a by-product of mathematics, and that philosophers are falsely proud of having logic as their methodology.
The reason why the whole of logic does not belong to the sciences is that the viewpoint from which sensation, thought, and feeling may be exercised in the broadest possible manner is not exhausted even by totaling all the object ranges of all the sciences. Each of them does logic in a manner limited by its object range. How then can their logic be the best possible? There is one and only one general science of which the viewpoint is the broadest. It is that science in which the viewpoint is that of the direct implications of the To Be of Reality-in-total.
Against this backdrop, although the following definition might seem queer for many physicists, mathematicians, and other scientists, there are reasons why I define here epistemology for use in physics. The following definition itself will clarify the reasons:
The epistemology behind physics is (1) the science of justifications (2) for the systemic fact, the systemic manner of achieving, the enhancement of the systemic manner of achieving, and the foundations of systems (3) of rationally derivable and explicable theoretical consequences of human efforts (4) to grasp the connection between physically existent reality and their pertinent realities of all sorts (5) in an asymptotic approach of truth-correspondence from the procedures of knowing (in terms of the pertinent realities of existent realities) onto the physically existent processes of reality, (6) in a spirally broadening and deepening manner of truth probability, (7) which serves to achieve ever better approximations of the epistemological ideal of knowing, namely, Reality-in-general, (8) starting from reality-in-particular, and (9) by use of the highest theoretical generalities pertaining to Reality-in-total and its parts, namely, reality-in-particular.
The epistemology of physics does not take the viewpoint of the To Be of Reality-in-total. But it must obey the primary implications of To Be and the viewpoint of the To Be of Reality-in-total. What these implications are, will be treated below, under “3. The Ontology of Physics”. Epistemology in philosophy may be slightly more general than the epistemology of physics, in the sense that philosophy takes the viewpoint of all physical processes that exist and attempt to view every reality from that viewpoint alone. If not, philosophy has no justification for existence.
Naturally, the epistemology of the sciences will not be so general as that of philosophy. But obedience to it is better for the epistemology of physics; and the advantages of such obedience will be seen in the results of such physics and such sciences.
The epistemology of physics, therefore, will attempt to theorize, know, and predict all that exist, but from the viewpoint exclusively of experimentally / empirically verifiable methods based on what is directly or indirectly before us, namely, the physical processes at our reach. The epistemology of systematically and systemically (i.e., systematically of systems of systems … ad libitum) moving in the use of logic from the given existent physical processes to the details of the not immediately given but ever more minute or ever more distant physical existents is the epistemology of physics. The above definition would, in my opinion, be sufficient to cover as broad and minute procedures as possible in physics. Time has come to appropriate it in physics, lest much advantage be lost for too long.
Not that philosophy does not trust this approach of physics. But philosophy looks for the Categorial presuppositions of existence behind all that is verifiable or verified empirically and empirical-theoretically. These presuppositions are the starting points and guiding principles of philosophy. There is a stark difference between a methodology of this kind and the methodology of basing everything on the truths derived from empirical and empirical-theoretical research. Now from this viewpoint you may judge the following suggestions and determine whether the epistemology of doing physical science is as broad as that of philosophizing.
Every moment, our body-brain nexus is continuously but finitely in contact with itself and with a finite extent of the environment, more or less simultaneously, but in differing intensities, no matter however elementary. The primary mode of this is through sensation, using all available and necessary aspects of it as the case may be. Thought and feeling are possible only in continuity with sensation, and never without it.
But one special characteristic of the human brain differentiating it from others is that sensation, feeling, and thought can very consciously induct into, and consequently deduce from the presuppositions of, all that exist – no matter whether they are a finite environment or infinite – and all these solely from the finite experience from the finite environment at hand. This seems to be absent in less human living beings.
Moreover, the second, but more forgotten, characteristic of the human brain differentiating it from others is that sensation, thought, and feeling are affective, tending to itself and to others, in the broadest sense of the term ‘affective’. It is the manner in which every human being tends in his/her sensation, feeling, and thought. Hence, all processes of knowing will be coloured by affection.
The manner and then the so-constructed broader background in which sensation, feeling, and thought take place is affection, which we term also love in a very general sense. Sensation, feeling, and thought are the three interconnected modes of tending of the body-brain to itself and to the environment, tend always to connect itself with the environment.
But here too the important differentiating characteristic in human body-brains is their capacity to tend to the environment beyond the immediate environments, and further beyond them, etc. ad libitum. There is nothing wrong in theoretically considering that there is the tendency in humans to converting this sort of ad libitum to ad infinitum, irrespective of whether these environments can really go ever broader at infinity in the content of matter-energy within Reality-in-total. Infinity is another term here for generalizing.
Reality consists of existent reality and realities that pertain to existent realities in their groups. Existent realities are clear enough to understand. Realities pertinent to existent realities are never to be taken as belonging to just one existent reality. They are always those generalities that belong to many existent realities in their respective natural kind. These generalities are what I call ontological universals.
All generalizations tend beyond onto the infinite perfection of the essential aspects of the concepts pertaining to the object-range. Not that the object-range must be infinite. Instead, the tending presumes an infinitization due to the idealization involved in generalizations. This is a kind of infinitization that does not need an infinite Reality-in-total in existence. All the concepts that a human being can use are based in the infinitization of the essential aspects of the concepts in their ideality. But behind these mental ideals there are the ideals, namely, the ontological universals pertaining to the groups (natural kinds) of processual entities in the environment. These are the ideals in the things and are not in us. These too are idealizations at the realm of the natural kinds that form part of Reality-in-total.
Without loving in the sense of tending to, as human do, to the inner and outer environments in their generalities there is no sensation, feeling, and thought. The tending to need not be due to the love of the objects but due to the love of something that pertains to them or to the ontologically universal ideals pertaining to the objects. From this it is clear that the relation between the processual objects and the sensing-feeling-knowing mind is set by the ontological universals in the natural kinds of existent physical processes.
At the part of the mind there should be idealized universals of conceptual quality, because the ontological universals in natural kinds cannot directly enter and form concepts. This shows that the conceptual universals (called connotative universals) are the mental reflections of ontological universals that are in the natural kinds. In short, behind the epistemology of sensation, feeling, and thought there are the ontology and epistemology of loving in the sense of tending to, due to the otherness implied between oneself and the environment.
There may be philosophers and scientists who do not like the idea of love. I say, this is due to the many psychology-related prejudices prevalent in their minds. We need to ask ourselves what the major mode of exercitation of any activity in human beings, and none can doubt the role of love in epistemology. The physical foundations of love too are commonly to be shared with the foundations of other aspects of physical existence.
Such tending by the person is mediated within the person by the connotative universals. Their expression is always in terms of symbols in various languages. These are called denotative universals. Connotative universals get concatenated in the mind in relation to their respective brain elements and form thoughts and feelings. Their expression in language is by the concatenation of denotative universals and get formulated in languages as theories and their parts.
To put in gist the latter part of “2. The Epistemology of Physics”, I suggest that the ontological, connotative, and denotative universals and the love of human agents to these and the very existent processual entities are what facilitate knowledge. The psychological question as to what happens when one has no love does not have any consequence here, because psychology differentiates between love and non-love in terms of certain presumed expressions of love and non-love.
In the case of the natural course of life of humans, the choice is not between love and non-love, but instead, between increasing or decreasing love. We do not speak here of loving other human beings as a matter of ethical action. Instead, the point is that of the natural love that humans have for everything including for sensing, feeling, knowing, etc.
One might wonder here why I did not discuss mathematics as an epistemologically valid tool of physics and other sciences. I have already dealt with this aspect in many other discussion texts in ResearchGate, and hence do not expatiate on it here.
3. The Ontology behind Physics
3.1. Traditional Physical Categories
There have arisen various schools of theories, mainly from within the physics community, theorizing elaborately concerning the ontological foundations of physics. Not till the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century have these notions been clear enough. Two major and common ways of approaching the foundations have been the following:
(1) Physical experiments and theories based on the notions of space, time, matter-energy, and causality. (2) Physical experiments and theories based on the four laws of conservation, namely, those of matter, energy, momentum, and charge. There may be other variations of the foundations, e.g., some include mass in the list. I believe that all such variations are based mostly on the two sets above.
The first set does not seem to be based on anything else from the viewpoints available in the long tradition of classification and the epistemic categories of space and time. The question of deriving one from the others or a few from the others within the list has not occurred. This is the foremost disadvantage of these categories.
But the second list integrates within each category the measuremental aspect of physical (scientific) activity. Interestingly, hence, the second set used to be reduced to symmetries (Hermann Weyl and others). But note that symmetries are measuremental and hence epistemic in nature. A symmetry is not a physical-ontological affair but instead the result of some epistemic operations upon already existent natural processes.
But here the existence of processes is taken for granted, and not included in the categories. That is, the nature of physical processes is not sufficiently taken notice of. This does not mean that the nature of physical processes is left aside from physics. Instead, it is not included in the categories.
Measurements are based on the epistemic concepts of space and time. A symmetry is never the result of merely one epistemic operation. A few measurements together constitute and result in any one sort of symmetry. Hence, the compositional nature of concepts assigned the categorial character in the four conservational categories renders conservational categories into less essential and less grounded for physics.
Moreover, in the above systems, causality is considered (1) either as an addition to the categories behind physical processes and the study of physical processes, (2) or as a notion being brought up in terms of the measuremental concepts of space and time, because until today a universally acceptable manner of defining causality in terms of any other primitive notions has not existed.
Hence, causality as an additional category not based on any other categories and symmetries based merely on composed measurements and not on any other fundamental categories cannot be the foundation for the study of the physical nature of existent processes. The latter needs physical-ontological Categories and these Categories should give rise to the basic notions of physics without reference to ad hoc positing of various basic notions as the foundations of physics.
Moreover, measurement systems like MKS, CGS, and SI are ipso facto mere epistemic systems. They are conventions of measurements, on which the nature of physical processes is based; and conventions of measurements are not based on the most general nature of existence of physical processes. This necessitates finding what underlies both measuremental systems and the resultant symmetries.
In the case of physics and the natural sciences as the general case, the epistemically oriented operations are for the most part measuremental. In the case of many other sciences – say, (1) some applied sciences like medicine, engineering, architecture, etc., (2) some of the human sciences, and (3) especially the fine arts, music, literature, etc. – the status of measurements is different. Exact measurements increasingly take a back seat in these three general types of sciences, although measurements exist in all of them in a more or less evident fashion.
But in the fine arts, music, literature, etc. we have sensation, experiential quality, feelings, etc. taking prominence over measurements. These procedures too are epistemically oriented procedures in such sciences, which scientists (and of course, all of us) often look down upon as sciences that obtain values calculated as less than those that the humanities obtain. Despite this fact, they too are sciences in some sense, since measurement is ubiquitously present in them at least as a minor procedure in comparison with the physical sciences and mathematics. I would hold even that the applied sciences, although active more often with procedural measurements, indulge also a lot of sensation, experiential quality, feelings, etc. in the manner of epistemic qualities.
3.2. Critique of Traditional Physical Categories
Some important details to be noticed in the above-mentioned two major traditional school systems of physical categories are the following:
(1) Firstly, space and time are not existents or ontological attributes of existents. As is clear from above, they are the measurementally epistemic and cognitive aspects of physical existents.
(2) Secondly, matter-energy can be taken as existents provided one does not tend to take the abstract Aristotelian-Thomistic meaning of matter (as the abstract raw material which, when exemplified, is always a material object, although such a raw material is never to be found anywhere) and energy (as an abstract action-at-a-distance with no material counterpart) in order to explain material objects.
(3) Thirdly, it is a false procedure in physics, cosmology and derived physical sciences to accept the measuremental notion of energy and material objects as just the number respectively of the energy emissions and material chunks measured based on measurement conventions (e.g., quanta). Instead, the notion of energy as existent propagation from existent matter, measurable in various conventional ways, is much more tenable.
(4) On the other hand, fourthly, the laws of conservation are not simple attributes of any existent. A detailed meaning-analysis of physicists’ claims may show that many of them have taken the conservation laws as the most fundamental attributes / qualities of theories. But they are principles formulated sententially out of a few notions and verbs, and hence rendered as principles composed of many other simple attributes which then are concatenated using verbal connective notions. I call as universals the simple attributes constituting the sentential principles of symmetries.
Even the verbal notions may be set in the qualitative language and rendered universal attributes. This is because both names and verbs belong to the processes that existents are and define existents as ongoing processes. Universals are the basic contents of all basic principles, definitions, etc. But what we need as most basic sources of physics are physical-ontological Categories that work as the fundamental notions of all universals.
Merely any one or some universals cannot suffice at the foundations of physics. They need to be the direct implications of the most fundamental of all notions, namely, To Be / To Exist. But why should physics follow this manner of thinking? None insists upon this on the physical praxis of a physicist. But the suggestion is that the physicist too deals with existing physical processes, and also the philosopher of physics deals with existent stuff, and not non-existent stuff. Why then should physicists follow those Categories that physical-ontologically justify their work? For the above reasons, I follow the way of searching for the universals of all existents in their equally nominal and verbal aspect, namely, the To Be of Reality-in-total.
Physics cannot be done in a well-justified manner without possibly best-grounded universals that go beyond the above-mentioned two groups of physical-ontologically insufficiently grounded, arbitrarily introduced, and haphazardly variegated categories which are not derivable from the most fundamental ones.
The most basic grounding should always be from the To Be of Reality-in-total, and such Categories are absolutely lacking in physics even today – a fact that I have become more and more aware of while discussing matters physical and cosmological on ResearchGate as I attempted to suggest what I found to be the possibly most basic Categories of all science and philosophy.
Some may suggest that the surest possible physical (not physical-ontological) grounding that has been provided by some in the past in terms of defining time, space, mass, and energy measurementally are sufficient for physics, and perhaps it is good to add causality, but we are not sure whether everything is fully causal – and that none needs to intrude into the foundations of physics from other disciplines.
I argue that all such grounds are insufficient due to their classificational and measuremental nature, as mentioned above. Secondly, they are insufficient for physics because they are exclusively and merely from within the ambit of physics. This does not ground physics. Moreover, I shall show that Universal Causality is ubiquitous if a physical existent should exist at all, i.e., from the concept of existence is Universal Causality to be derived in a pre-scientifically ontological manner, and that the instruments of such derivation are themselves the primary Categories of physics.
The two sets of physical categories mentioned above, due to their classificational and measuremental nature, are not derivable from the To Be of all existents. To put the argument in gist, the definitions of all the said merely physical categories use simple universals as ingredients; these ingredients are not final enough; there are two most final ontological universals; and hence, the highest ontological universals should also be at the foundations of physics along with existent matter-energy, so that the classifications and measurements of existent matter-energy within physics be conceptually possible; and further, these two Categories are the very essence of Universal Causality too.
3.3. Grounded Physical-Ontological Categories behind Physics
Grounding can be of various levels and grades. I speak of grounding all sorts of concepts, procedure principles, procedure methods, and theories in any system of thought and science. It is unnecessary in this context to discuss the grounding of highly derivative concepts that occur much later in theories than those that appear while founding them with best-grounded foundations. I go directly to the case of what should be called the most Categorial concepts behind physics, on which physics is grounded.
These Categorial concepts cannot be merely from within physics but should be directly related to and facilitating physics in as many of its aspects as possible. The success of foundational Categories consists in that they serve to ground as many aspects as possible of the particular science or system. Concepts strictly and exclusively physical or generally scientific cannot be as useful as notions from beyond in order to serve as Categories. Evidently, this is because no scientific discipline or system can be grounded on itself and hence on its own concepts. This is clearly also part of the epistemological and ontological implications of the work of Godel.
Grounded ontological Categories are such that they are inevitably and exhaustively grounded in the To Be of Reality-in-total as the only exhaustive implications of To Be. All other Categories, as far as possible, must be derivative of the most primary Categories. The more the number of Categories within the Categorial system that do not derive from the primary Categories the worse for the self-evidence of the science or system within it.
Grounding is exhaustive in the sense that the Categories that ground all physics need nothing else to be a concept than the To Be of Reality-in-total. To Be is the source of the Categories. It happens to be that there are two such Categories that are inevitably and exhaustively grounded. I call them Extension and Change. Clarifications of their meaning, ontological significance, and epistemological and physical implications and follow.
As I said, preferably grounding must be on the surest notion of all, which is existence. I prefer to term it To Be. As far as thought, feeling, and sensation are concerned, To Be is a notion in al of them. But principally To Be must belong to the whole of Reality, and not to a few things. If anything and/or all processes of Reality are existent, then what exist are the parts of existent Reality. The first minimum guarantee hereof should be that existence should be non-vacuous. Non-vacuous signifies that each possesses or contains whatever is possible within its existence in the given measurementally spatio-temporal context (which, as shall soon be clear, belong ontologically to the Extension-Change-wise existence of things).
3.4. Definitions of Universals, Extension-Change, Causality, and Unit Process
Even the minimum realism in thought, feeling, and sensation has for its principal conditions (1) the ontological primacy of universal qualities / natures that belong to groups of entities (processes), where the groups are also called natural kinds in the analytic tradition, and then (2) the ultimate simplicity and indivisibility of the universal characteristics that pertain to all existents. Contrary to the infinite divisibility of existent matter-energy, universals as the characteristics of existent matter-energy conglomerations (of togethernesses of unit Processes) are ontologically ideal universals, and hence indivisible. These universals are ideal not because of our idealisation of the characteristics, but instead because they are the general characteristics of the natural kinds to which each existent belongs. Thus, it is important to keep in mind that ontological universals are not our idealizations.
The properties of things are built out of these simple ontological universals in the natural kinds. The vague reflections of simple ontological universals within our minds are conceptually connotative universals, which are conceptual ideals. And their linguistic reflections in minds and all kinds of symbolic instruments are denotative universals.
Connotative and denotative universals are epistemological universals, formed epistemically from the little contact that minds have with the phenomena (“showings-themselves”) from some layers of processual objects from out there. The properties of existent processual things (matter-energy particulars) are vaguely reflected in minds and languages through the connotative and denotative instrumentalization of concepts in order to reflect the things via phenomena in terms of the data created by minds out of them. Any theory that permits ontological primacy to epistemological universals is one of a range of theories yielding primacy to the perceiving mind over the perceived objects. This is anathema in any scientific or philosophical science, because things are not vacua.
Non-vacuous existence implies that existents are extended. This is one of the most important characteristics of existents. Extension implies having parts, compositionality. Any extended existent’s parts impart impact to some others. This is Change. Only extended existents can exert impacts on any other. As a result, the object that exerts impact gets in itself some impact within, which is nothing but the proof that an impact by one extended part implies movements and impact formation by its parts too, as a result of the overall impact formation in question which contains the inner parts’ impact formation within. The latter need not always have its effects merely within the parts but instead also outwards.
Extension and Change are the highest, deepest, and most general characteristics of all existents. Interestingly, existence in Extension-Change is itself the process that we have so far named causation. Hence, anything non-vacuously existent has Extension and Change not separately but together. This is the meaning of Universal Causality. Physics cannot dispense with this pre-scientific universal Law. No more shall quantum physicists or scientists from other disciplines tell us that quantum physics has some sort of non-causality within! Any causal unit of existents in which the causal part and the effect part may be termed a process. Processuality is yet another important characteristic of existents, but we formulate it as Process, which represents the matter-energy units that there can be.
By this have clearly been set up three physical-ontological Categories of physics: Extension, Change, Causality, and Process. Space and time are merely epistemic categories. They cannot characterize existent processes. Ontological universals, as the characteristics of existent matter-energy conglomerations, are of togethernesses of unit Processes. Ontological universals are therefore ontologically ideal universals belonging (pertaining) to some natural kinds. The Categories as ontological universals belong to Reality-in-total, and not merely some natural kinds.
3.5. Definition of the Ontology behind Physics
In the definition of the ontology of physics, therefore, I shall posit the necessity of the highest possible grounds that I find as fundamental for physics and philosophy alike. The reason for these Categories’ being meant more or less also for philosophy is that both philosophy and physics have physical existents in common as their object range; and philosophy additionally has the pure universals of physics within the ambit of study. Hence, well-grounded physical foundations cannot do without the most suitable among these universals as its fundamental Categories, selected from among the universals forming part of the objects of philosophy.
Although many physicists and mathematicians may find the following definition queer due to their pragmatic and near-sighted concept of physics (where physical objects, and not their universals / qualities, are part of their object range) in a non-grounded manner, I define here ontology for use in physics with the purpose of elaboration of the various aspects brought forward in the definition.
The Ontology behind physics is (1) the rationally consequent science of the totality of physical existents, their parts, and their sine qua nons, namely, the pure universals as pertinents of existents and their parts, (2) prioritized as objects in terms of the To Be (Greek, Einai) of Reality-in-total and only thereafter in terms of the to be (einai) of its parts (reality-in-particular), (3) serving to achieve ever better measuremental approximations of the cosmos and its part-systems (4) in terms of the epistemological ideal of Reality-in-total, namely, the theoretically highest possible notion of Reality-in-general, (5) grounded in the unique and exhaustive implications of To Be, namely, Extension and Change, (6) in properly physical activities that let Reality and realities be measured in term of measuremental and classificational categories that facilitate both experiments and theories equally well.
I have introduced here the highest Ideals of philosophical and scientific thinking, namely, To Be, Reality-in-total, and Reality-in-general. These are not explained here well enough. I have treated them with detailed justifications in my books: Physics without Metaphysics? Categories of Second Generation Scientific Ontology, Frankfurt, 2015, and Gravitational Coalescence Paradox and Cosmogenetic Causality in Quantum Astrophysical Cosmology, 2018, Berlin.
3.6. The Curse of Mathematical / Theoretical Physics
The Background: The ultimate physical and cosmological significance of the Categories of Extension (“being extended / having parts” while in existence) and Change (“extended existents causing impacts on others and also on themselves”) must be seen in the context of warding off quantum-physical, cosmological, statistical, and other sorts of inexplicable and bizarre existence-related aberrations resulting from theories like those of (1) parallel universes, (2) extra dimensions, (3) vacuous universes, (4) total mutual disconnection of universes, (5) infinite number of positive-content physical universes taking origin like extra-fitted balloons from “technically / mathematically zero-valued” quantum vacua or quantum-vacuum universes without any iota of causal agency (because quantum vacua are merely of near-zero zero statistical expectations), (6) the presumed existence of space, time, and spacetime like physical things in mathematical fields, (7) the theoretical writing-off of time alone as unreal and unnecessary, etc.
This sort of aberrations renders some theories and their related concepts into theories about absolutely non-existent objects (in some analytic-logical philosophies, called also as “counterfactual possible worlds”) and into substitute theoretical entities that serve only to explain procedures and not to explain existent processes. These serve for physicists and cosmologists to temporarily save their face by use of irrational adherence to methods of maintenance of mere uncertainties in mathematical physics.
The Curse of Theoretical Physics: I mentioned these above in order to speak of the curse of advanced mathematical physics. This curse is the confusion between (1) physical existents, (2) non-existent theoretical constructs, (3) theories representing small or large theoretical processes required only for theory, and (4) the lack of criteria of creating theories for describing existent processes with recourse to vacuous, non-existent, virtual objects and processes, but without turning these objects and processes into existent objects lacking the criteria of existence.
Positing ad hoc explanatory theories to clarify certain theoretical inaptitudes of notions or deviations in arguments is assuredly necessary for the progress of science. But these are sooner to be overwhelmed (not to be substituted) by more adequate and existentially non-aberrational unobservables and/or theoretical terms. As of now, physics, astrophysics, and cosmology are full of theoretical entities that cannot ever be proved to be existent unobservables. This is the curse of physics today – a graver problem today than previously.
3.7. Implications of Pragmatism and Idealism in Physics
For argument’s sake, if an observer is in absolute inertia / standstill with respect to everything else in the universe, he could possess high truth-probability concerning truths about spatiotemporally closest processes. But the fact is that ourselves, our senses, our instruments, and our environments are in motion, which is one of the ingredients of instances of actualization of Change. Hence, our experimental and consequently our theoretical visualization of physical processes in our environment is comparable to our direct vision from a running train.
What should be most closely real to us is our own motion as such and not the motions and changes within or outside. Nearby objects will then be most difficult to observe because their direction of motion will always be directly comparable to our own merely as different from ours. In fact, their immediacy to us and our motion as such would only be momentary. This is a fact that pragmatism, scientism, empiricism, experimentalism, etc. forget.
Distant objects will be relatively clearer due to the part played by the low proportionality between the distances and our own motion as such. This state of affairs may be conceived as follows. If the generalities of the objects at theoretical and empirical vision are clearly in view in terms of their general foundations, our vision will be more truth-probable than when (as in the case of close vision) the comparative differences of motions is high due to (1) the momentariness of exposure obtained between ourselves and the nearest objects, and (2) the lack of general vision between the two, that should normally have been facilitated by the general Categories that apply in cases of both near vision and distant vision.
To render the Categories applicable to processes both distant and near in spacetime, the only direct feasible manner of approach is to first discover the Categories that apply to near and distant visions and objects equally well, and then put them to use at least both epistemologically and ontologically and of course in other ways.
3.8. General Theories of the Evolutionary Stuff of Reality-in-total
In order to make possible a clear discussion of the necessity of physical-ontological Categories in physical and other sciences, I name some general forms of theories of the evolutionary stuff of Reality-in-total.
(1) There is a range of theories assigning existence only to minds or to the Divine as mind, the latter categorized as the fully mental being and the former partaking in the mentality of the latter.
(2) Yet another group of theories permits existence only to concepts / the conceptual, in contradistinction from minds and the Divine. This group, I believe, is a direction that existed all through the millennia and tried again and again to present themselves in various forms, at times very much mixed up with the first group so that the distinctions have become extremely difficult to understand.
(3) The third type permits in existence only physical entities as we normally conceptualize. Theories of this group are various, including physicalism, scientism, reductionism, etc. couched in their various theoretical shades.
The confusion between the first two types attests to the false identification of consciousness / mind with the conceptual / mental and the misidentification of all or any of existents with the Divine. This sort of ontological identification of the physical with the mental / spiritual and this with the divine is called pantheism. The identification may even be evolutionary. But in this case it becomes a system that accepts also the material world, but as an initial phase.
Theories which, however, find that at least a good portion of what are sensed is the physical world, permit the existence of matter-energy as part of Reality-in-total. Those that take only matter-energy as existent hold either the one or the other of the following:
(1) They reduce consciousness into matter-energy, do not grant any divine nature to consciousness, and do not find these two as originating from the Divine.
(2) They find matter-energy as the physical existent, take consciousness as emergent out of matter-energy without losing their basic physical status, and permit the origin of matter-energy and/or consciousness as unique in themselves but as created or emergent products originating from the agency of the Divine. These are mentioned here with the purpose only of a clear differentiation serving not to dismiss the existence of matter-energy.
Without entering upon a theoretical discernment over the above theoretical varieties of ontology, I attempt to concentrate on the existence conditions necessitated by ordinary science and advanced mathematical physics and cosmology, which deal primarily with physical existents. I shall show in the rudiments of a physical ontology here below the relevance of (1) the most universal Categories for all existents – i.e., physical processes, consciousnesses of all grades, and, if there is, also the Divine, which then should be an infinitely active and infinitely extended bodiliness – and (2) the reflections, of the pertinent ontological universals of existents within minds and through symbolic languages. (Please note here that I did not insist on the existence of the Divine, but only suggested how it would be if it existed.)
It is also possible to show certain cases of the ontology of Reality-in-total if minds and the Divine are absolutely distinct cases. See my discussions:
(1)https://www.researchgate.net/post/Infinite-Eternal_Multiverse_Implications_to_Physics_and_Cosmology
3.9. The Mode of Action of Existence and of Knowledge
Under the section “2. The Epistemology of Physics”, I have brought into discussion the natural tendency of humans to love not merely what is present in the immediate vicinity but also the distant natural kinds (groups of gross processual entities that are not directly available for experiments due to their distances), the less evident natural kinds (existing unobservables and unobservables that are not yet proved to exist), and the abstract / pertinent kinds (universals) of all that exist. Among these objects of love are to be found also the totality of all existents and the most general pertinents of Reality-in-total.
It is unacceptable that someone here tells me that none loves such objects. I agree that all sorts of psychologically direct perception of love are almost absent herein. But the tending to them intellectually, through feelings, and through sensations, wherever whichever is possible, is already present in all of us. It IS love, too.
Any existent can tend to existents, their pertinents, and to some extent also to the mental and linguistic reflections of both these. The tending and love for the reflections of both the first two can only transpire through the tending to and love for the first two. The tending in physical processes is not love. But at least in human beings it takes the shape of love. I think this aspect must gain momentum in epistemology. In other philosophical disciplines it should be acceptable in a slightly different manner.
This is due to the primacy of the ontological (in respect of existence, existents, and their pertinents in existent systems) as against the epistemic (which is a vague and veiled conscious reflection of the former in their existent systems). The epistemic is merely the description of how knowledge takes place and should take place with the help of finite amounts of data input derived from a few layers of the phenomena issuing from a few layers of the reality in question.
Epistemology is the study of truth-occurrences, and not directly of truth derivation methods nor directly of their existence. But it presupposes these. This is also why I hold that physical ontology is the existential foundation of epistemology. But physical ontology must itself be grounded upon the very notion of the To Be of Reality-in-total.
If primacy of existence can be accorded to the ontological, then whatever exists in this world may primarily be termed physical in existence (not physical in the sense of being the object of the science of physics, because primacy is to existence, not to any discipline.
Such a claim needs to overcome 3 objections in view of unification of our 2 best theories (qm& gr) .
(Realism claims our theories captured the truth about the world, a belief.)
Argument 1: There is no easily constructed semantic thesis about the shared correspondence of the 2 theories to the world i. E the objects& concepts of 1 cannot be combined demsntically with the other.
Semantic realism assets that properties of sentences i. e having meaning, being true etc are objectively explained primarily typically by in terms of causal relationships or interactions or correspobdence to external world.
every declarative sentence in one's language is bivalent (determinately true or false) and evidence-transcendent (independent of our means of coming to know which), while anti-realism rejects this view in favour of a concept of knowable (or assertible) truth.
Argument 2: The unproven hypothesis of a commonly held by the 2 theories correspondence to reality.
This argument is a thesis based on epistemological realism, a philosophical position, a subcategory of objectivism, holding that what can be known about an object exists independently of one's mind. Thus we ned to combine the 2 theories in a way to obtain an independent of mind correspondence to reality which is possible if we direct our focus on the Common denominator mind independent theorizing of the 2 theories.
It is opposed to epistemological idealism. Epistemological realism is related directly to the correspondence theory of truth
Argument 3: lack of proven commutative principle of Metaphysical realism. MR is the thesis that the objects, properties and relations the world contains, collectively: the structure of the world [Sider 2011], exists independently of our thoughts about it or our perceptions of it. So if 2 theories are proven to be so, their marriage is also.
